The Bear: History of a Fallen King

The oldest discovered statue, fashioned some fifteen to twenty thousand years ago, is of a bear. The lion was not always king. From antiquity to the Middle Ages, the bear’s centrality in cults and mythologies left traces in European languages, literatures, and legends from the Slavic East to Celtic Britain. Historian Michel Pastoureau considers how this once venerated creature was deposed by the advent of Christianity and continued to sink lower in the symbolic bestiary before rising again in Pyrrhic triumph as a popular toy.

The early Church was threatened by pagan legends of the bear’s power, among them a widespread belief that male bears were sexually attracted to women and would violate them, producing half-bear, half-human beings—invincible warriors who founded royal lines. Marked for death by the clergy, bears were massacred. During the Renaissance, the demonic prestige bears had been assigned in biblical allegory was lost to the goat, ass, bat, and owl, who were the devil’s new familiars, while the lion was crowned as the symbol of nobility. Once the undefeated champions of the Roman arena, prized in princely menageries, bears became entertainers in the marketplace, trained to perform humiliating tricks or muzzled and devoured by packs of dogs for the amusement of humans. By the early twentieth century, however, the bear would return from exile, making its way into the hearts of children everywhere as the teddy bear.

This compelling history reminds us that men and bears have always been inseparable, united by a kinship that gradually moved from nature to culture—a bond that continues to this day.

This is a history of the role of the bear in European society. Pastoureau (École Pratique des Hautes Études, France) traces pagan veneration of the bear from the Paleolithic to the feudal era, describes the Christian-motivated war on both bears and bear-worship that began under Charlemagne, and considers the abasement of the bear into circus amusement and stuffed animals for children. Throughout the discussion, he situates Europe's relation to the bear in the context of changing relations of human society to other animals and their symbolism. Translated from the French text L'ours: Histoire d'un roi déchu (2007). Belknap is an imprint of Harvard U. Press. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

From antiquity to the Middle Ages, the bear’s centrality in cults and mythologies left traces in European languages, literatures, and legends. Michel Pastoureau considers how this once venerated creature was deposed by Christianity and continued to sink lower in the symbolic bestiary before rising again in Pyrrhic triumph as the teddy bear.

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