Famous Animals In History And Legend

Thirty-one stories of famous animals in history, mythology, folklore, literature, and religion.

During the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson bought a flock of sheep to trim the White House grounds to save money on groundskeeping. One of the sheep, called Old Ike, even became a public phenomenon for his ornery disposition and his penchant for chewing tobacco. Included here are hundreds of well-researched accounts of the fascinating animals that have played vital roles throughout history. Featured animals include Able, who flew on a space mission; Bayou, Salvador Dali's ocelot companion; and G.I. Joe, a pigeon who saved more than 100 people during World War II. These and many other stories detail the unexpected contributions of our animal companions in settings of war, space travel, stage and screen. The book is organized alphabetically by the given name of each animal, and entries feature compelling factual descriptions in a storytelling format.

An engaging and informative survey of medieval pet keeping which also examines their representation in art and literature.

Throughout history, animals have shaped the world as we know it. But rarely have they received the recognition they deserve. Until now. This inside look at history’s most famous animals features wacky verse, cool facts, historical stats, and zany cartoon art. Meet Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus, who was his battle companion for nearly 30 years. Learn about Mozart’s starling bird that helped him write music by singing along as he composed. Read about the Ethiopian goats that discovered the coffee bean, Marco Polo seeing dragons in China, and a dog named Boatswain that saved Napoleon’s life. From the cobra that killed Cleopatra to Cairo, the dog that helped hunt down Osama bin Laden, Historical Animals has these stories and more!

A collection of stories, most less than a page, about animals, drawn from accounts purported to be true, literature, and folktale, mostly European. The introductions to the volume and the chapters (by animal) comprise a scholarly treatise on the folklore and literature of animals. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

What would we learn if animals could tell their own stories? Éric Baratay, a pioneering researcher in animal histories in France, applies his knowledge of historical methodologies to give voice to some of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ most interesting animals. He offers brief yet innovative accounts of these animals’ lives in a way that challenges the reader’s thinking about animals. Baratay illustrates the need to develop a nonanthropocentric means of viewing the lives of animals and including animals themselves in the narrative of their lives. Animal Biographies launches an all-new investigation into the lives of animals and is a major contribution to the field of animal studies. This English translation of Éric Baratay’s Biographies animales: Des Vies retrouvées, originally published in France in 2017 (Éditions du Seuil), uses firsthand accounts starting from the nineteenth century about specific animals who lived in Europe and the United States to reconstruct, as best as possible, their stories as they would have experienced them. History is, after all, not just the domain of humans. Animals have their own. Baratay breaks the model of human exceptionalism to give us the biographies of some of history and literature’s most famous animals. The reader will catch a glimpse of storied lives as told by Modestine, the donkey who carried Robert Louis Stevenson through the Alps; Warrior, the World War I horse made famous in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse; Islero, the bull who gored Spain’s greatest bullfighter; and others. Through these stories we discover their histories, their personalities, and their shared experiences with others of their species.

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