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Greek Mythology >> Bestiary >> Legendary Creatures >> Yale (Eale)

EALE

Greek Name

Εαλη Εαλαι

Transliteration

Ealê, Ealai

Latin Spelling

Yale, Yale

Translation

Roll Back (ealên, eilô)

Eale or Yale | Der Naturen Bloeme manuscript (1350) | National Library of the Netherlands
Eale or Yale, Der Naturen Bloeme manuscript (1350), National Library of the Netherlands

THE EALE (Yale) was a strange bull-like animal native to Aithiopia (Ethiopia) (sub-Saharan Africa). It was a hippo-sized beast equipped with the tusks of a boar and a set of rotating horns.

The creature's name was derived from the Greek words ealênand eilô"roll back," a reference to its moveable horns.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8. 73 (trans. Rackham) (Roman encyclopedia C1st A.D.) :
"Aethiopia (Ethiopia) produces . . . many monstrosities : . . . Among the same people is also found the animal called the Eale (Yale), the size of a hippopotamus, with an elephant's tail, of a black or tawny colour, with the jaws of a boar and movable horns more than a cubit in length which in a fight are erected alternately, and presented to the attack or sloped backward in turn as policy directs."

SOURCES

ROMAN

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete bibliography of the translations quoted on this page.