Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities
Adrienne Mayor
Princeton University Press
Nonfiction, Folklore/History
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For all the copious amount of studies dedicated to history, there are still plenty of things that have fallen through the cracks, things that are either dismissed as falsehoods or misinterpretations or simply lack sufficient interest to tempt researchers. Author Adrienne Mayor shines a light into some of these overlooked nooks and crannies, unearthing a treasure trove of oddities and wonders and peculiar moments and factoids, from the often-forgotten roles of Native Americans and enslaved Africans in early American fossil hunting to possible explanations for persistent reports of "flying snakes" in Middle Eastern deserts, from tales of ancient poisons to "mad honey", even to the long histories of such peculiar human recreations as tourism, mountain climbing, and faking fossils.
REVIEW: There's a tendency to dismiss previous generations and cultures as lessers: less sophisticated, less able to discern truth from fiction or reality from illusion, less intelligent or worthy. Previous generations may not have been splitting atoms or launching interplanetary probes or live-streaming their pet cats being spooked by cucumbers, but they had the same basic brain structure as modern humans, and were at least as capable of understanding the world around them, as well as wondering how it worked and where they fit into it. Yet for too long, the idea that Ancient Greeks may have recovered fossils and attempted to reconstruct extinct animals, for instance, was dismissed out of hand. Other references fell by the wayside as being too inconsequential or vague to be worth pursuing, such as the possible identity of those "flying snakes" in places where true gliding snakes couldn't live, or the truth hidden in traveler's tales of tiny orange "birds" highly prized for their toxicity. Author Mayor digs into these little factoid nuggets with varying degrees of depth and success, from the ancient world to more recent times, touching on topics such as the domestication of ferrets (the chosen pet for rodent control before cats spread from Ancient Egypt), the classical personalities of the winds, tales of ancient "giants", the mysterious origin of the mammoth foot examined by famed naturalist Cuvier, early anti-vaxxers, and more. There are some odd omissions and numerous places where I wish there were more information presented, and some of the essays just seem of drift or end without seeming to make much of a point or reaching a conclusion. And there were places where it felt like she'd lost track of the main theme of the book, which was supposed to be classical and historical oddities and not waxing nostalgic about pets. Also - and this is not the fault of the author - the audiobook was supposed to have a PDF file I could download with images from the printed edition, but searching Libby has yielded no such addendum (I've seen them on other audiobooks, so I don't know what's going on with this one; I even checked with my tablet and my PC).
If someone is looking for in-depth explorations of the subjects mentioned here, then this book is only going to serve as a starting point; an extensive bibliography cites Mayor's sources for further investigation. If someone is just looking for a quick glimpse of unusual, often overlooked or forgotten or dismissed bits of history and folklore, then this is just what they're after. I wavered a bit, but wound up landing on the side of the full fourth star for the breadth of unusual topics covered, even if the depth could be lacking (sometimes frustratingly so).
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