But the notion was not entirely an alien one.
According to Pliny, these pygmies fought the cranes with arrows while mounted on goats and rams.
Aristotle suggested that the tiny swallow avoided the strain of migration by hibernating in the ground instead.
These myths were kept alive for centuries.
A woodblock print accompanying the passage shows fishermen pulling up a net loaded with hibernating swallows from a lake.
Aristotle even went so far as to suggest that some birds underwent miraculous transmutation as the seasons changed.
Another bizarre animal fable that was born through a comedy of errors was that of the barnacle goose.
They resemble the marsh-geese, but are smaller.
Drawing from the manuscript of Topographia Hibernica by Gerald of Wales.
Photo:Hans Hillewaert/Wikimedia Commons
Goose barnacles on wood.
There is, however, a curious popular tradition that they spring from dead trees.
This goose hangs from the dead wood by its beak until it is old and strong enough to fly.
We therefore doubt the truth of this legend in the absence of corroborating evidence.
Frederick IIs contemporary Albertus Magnus went even farther and actually bred one with a domestic goose.
That was in the 13th century.
Yet, the absurdity survived for five more centuries with many naturalists giving credit to the story.
