THE OLD - Old Wirral.com

OLD WOOD-CARVINGS IN WIRRAL CHURCHES
Middle Ages, so that probably no book
except the Bible has ever been so widely
diffused. It has been translated into
nearly all the principal languages from the
year a.d. 496 to the present time, and
allusions to it are found in sermons and
sacred songs,
in devotional works and
doctrinal treatises, and in secular and
erotic poetry, as well as in the wood carvings
of our churches.
The " Physiologus " begins with the
lion as the king of beasts, and from that
point onward deals in arbitrary order with
every animal, bird, reptile, fish, actual or
legendary, and points out moral and
religious parallels. Thus it states of the
eagle, whose form is so frequently used for
the lectern, that, when it has grown old
and its eyes liave become dim and dark-
ened, it flies upward towards the sun until
it has scorched its wings and purged away
the film from its eyes ; then it descends to
the earth and plunges three times into a
spring of pure water. Thus it recovers its
sight and renews its youth.
The eagle, so it is also said, can gaze at
the bright sun without blinking, and is
accustomed to carry its unfledged young
on its wings upward and to compel them to
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