| Barbary Lamb | |
| Other Names: | |
| Lamb
of Tartary Vegetable Lamb Planta Tartarica Barometz Barometz |
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| Images: | |
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| Lamb-like
creature of medieval legends that was half-animal and
half-vegetable. They are attached to trees with short
stems and their hindquarters are hidden deep within the
foliage. They die quickly of starvation after eating all
their surrounding vegetation. The flesh of Barbary Lambs
is said to taste like fish and their blood that of honey,
and their bones are often used for rituals, including
divination and prophecy. It is a favorite meal of wolves,
as it bursts with bloody juice upon breaking and remains
alive until completely devoured. The Barbary Lamb was actually cotton, but since Europeans didn't know about cotton, they interpreted the cotton to be wool, a fabric familiar to them. They reasoned that since the plant grew wool, it must have been half-animal and half-plant. |