Weird Tales/Volume 14/Issue 3/The Salamander

The Salamander

In the streams of the United States are found lizard-like creatures—usually only a few inches in length, but in the rivers often reaching a foot or more—which are variously called water-dogs, hell-benders, mud-puppies and other names; but naturalists call them salamanders. They are the modern types of those ancient fabulous lizards which could pass unhurt through fire. Some of the little salamanders found in our springs and caves are even spotted just as those fireproof ones were.

A Roman writer of nearly 2,000 years ago said that the salamander's body was "starred," or spotted all over. "It is so intensely cold," he goes on, "that it extinguishes fire by its contact, in the same way that ice does. It spits forth a milky matter from its mouth; and whatever part of the human body is touched with this, all hair falls off and the part assumes the appearance of leprosy."

The salamander was said to have no sex, either male or female, but was produced by some other animal. Writers differed as to what animal did this. A zoologist of only 200 years ago still believed in the myth, though in modified form. "One Part of its Skin," said he, "is exceeding black and the other yellow; both very bright and glittering, with a black Line all along the Back where those Spots are, out of which, as some Writers say, a certain Liquor or Humour proceeds, which quencheth the Heat of Fire when it is in the same. These animals are bred in the Alps and some parts of Germany, in marshy, wet Places; and are said to be cold as Ice. The vulgar Notion that a Salamander can live in and not be burnt by Fire is without any Foundation of Truth, for the Experiment has been tried, and the Salamander was consumed to Ashes. The Truth is, as long as the Humour before mentioned runs, the Fire can not hurt it; but when that Moisture is dried up, the Fire consumes the Salamander, and that instantly. The Bite of this Creature is very deadly and fatal. It is a saying in France that a Man bit by a Salamander should have as many Physicians to cure him as the Salamander has spots."

There seems also to have been an ancient belief in a Nature-spirit called salamander which lived in fire, even as three other Nature-spirits, the sylph lived in and represented the air, the undine the water, and the gnome the earth, respectively.