Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
A legendary sheep-plant from Central Asian folklore.
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary is a legendary zoophyte from Central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were thought to be connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the surrounding land, with both dying when the foliage was exhausted. The legend likely arose from the cotton plant, which was unknown in Northern Europe before the Norman conquest of Sicily.
Quick Facts
- Also known as
- Scythian Lamb
- Barometz
- Borametz
- Grouping
- Legendary creature
- Sub grouping
- Zoophyte
- Similar entities
- Adnei haSadeh
- Folklore
- European
- First attested
- 11th century
- Habitat
- Tartary
Facts from the source article.
Characteristics
Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica named it the Boramez. Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopædia described Agnus scythicus as a zoophyte resembling a lamb, also called Agnus Vegetabilis and Agnus Tartaricus, with reported endonyms Borometz, Borametz, and Boranetz. Henry Lee's 1887 book notes that the lamb was believed to be both a true animal and a living plant, though some writers thought it was a fruit sprouting from melon-like seeds, while others considered it a living part of the plant that died if separated. The vegetable lamb was said to have blood, bones, and flesh like a normal lamb, connected to the earth by a stem like an umbilical cord that allowed it to graze. Once the surrounding plants were eaten, the lamb died. Its blood supposedly tasted sweet like honey, and its wool was used for head coverings and clothing. Wolves were the only carnivorous animals attracted to it besides humans.
Possible origins
Herodotus wrote of trees in India with wool-like fruit used for clothing. Jewish folklore from AD 436 mentions a similar creature called the Yeduah, a lamb-like plant-animal connected to a stem, harvested by severing it with arrows or darts, after which its bones were used for divination. An alternative version describes a human-shaped jeduah connected by a stem to its navel, aggressive and killing any creature that wandered close, dying when severed. Friar Odoric of Pordenone heard of trees on the Irish Sea shore with gourd-like fruits that became birds called Bernacles, referring to the barnacle tree legend. Gustav Schlegel's 1892 work points to Chinese legends of the watersheep as inspiration, a plant-animal near Persia connected by a stem, protected by enclosures and armored men, with wool used for fine clothing and headdresses; the watersheep itself explains sea silk.
In search of the legend
Earlier versions described the lamb as a fruit from a melon or gourd-like seed, perfectly formed, but later it was seen as both animal and plant. Schlegel recounts the lamb born without horns, with two puffs of white curly hair. The 14th-century book The Travels of Sir John Mandeville brought the legend to European attention, describing a gourd-like fruit in Tartary that, when ripe, revealed a lamb in flesh and blood but without wool. Friar Odoric of Friuli claimed to have heard of similar gourds in Persia. During the Renaissance, the Lamb of Tartary was debated philosophically and botanically. Sigismund von Herberstein, ambassador in 1517 and 1526, gave a detailed account in his Notes on Russia, placing the creature near the Caspian Sea between the Jaick and Volga rivers. It grew from melon-like seeds to 2.5 ft, resembling a lamb but with blood and flesh like crab, hooves of parted hair, and was a favorite food of wolves. In 1698, Sir Hans Sloane claimed a Chinese tree fern, Cibotium barometz, was the origin, as its woolly rhizome when inverted resembles a lamb.
Cultural references
Denis Diderot wrote an article on agnus scythicus in the first edition of the Encyclopédie, noting its purely vegetable nature and using it to argue against superstition. In the manga Monster Musume, characters Cott and Ton are anthropomorphized Barometz. The video game Odin Sphere features Baromett seeds that yield sheep for hit point replenishment. The manga Delicious in Dungeon depicts a Barometz plant whose fruit tastes like crab. In Little Witch Academia, a Barometz plant is needed for a mecha. The Madou Monogatari and Puyo Puyo series include an enemy named Baromett, a sheep with a red tomato-like lower half.
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