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Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 28  1909  page 370

Sybill Arms at Little Mote, Eynsford by George C. Druce

fonts, bench-ends, misericordes, etc. Some, such as the mermaid, griffin, or centaur, are plentiful; others, as the unicorn, asp, or peacock, are scarce. At the present moment I know of only one example of the Tiger and the Mirror, upona misericorcie of the fifteenth century at Chester Cathedral, which, by the kindness of Mr. F. H. Crossley of Knutsford, I am able to reproduce (Plate II. I). It agrees very well with the illustrations in the Latin Bestiaries at the British Museum, except that the hunter is shewn as a knight in armour. He carries the cub in his left hand, while he is in the act of throwing down a mirror with the other. We have here a good illustration of the composition of the subject being subordinated to exigencies of space. It would have been inconvenient for the carver to have made the hunter upright on account of the ledge, and so he has adroitly made him bending backwards in the act of dropping the mirror. The duplication of the tigers, which are more like dogs, is in the same way due to the need for symmetry. One of them is pawing the mirror exactly as in the MSS. It is to be hoped that more architectural examples will be forthcoming.

   But this does not exhaust the list, for such legendary subjects were freely used for the ornamentation of such objects as caskets. An inspection of the ivory caskets in the Maskell collection at the British Museum shew examples of the Unicorn legend, the Lai d’Arislote, and Round Table romances, but I have not noticed the Tiger legend. That it was used, however, in this way appears from an account of a small carved wooden casket which was contributed in 1876 by the late Professor Westwood to the Journal of the Royal Archaeologica1 Institute (vol. xxxiii., p. 400), with illustrations, one of which the Council of the Society has kindly allowed me to reproduce. On the bottom appears, among other subjects, the Tiger and the Mirror. It shews the hunter on foot carrying the cub, while the tiger gazes at a mirror set in a tree. Professor Westwood puts the date of this casket at the end of the thirteenth century. The symbolism of the casket subjects is usually chivalrous rather than religious,

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