According to a survey published in May, 70 per cent of nine and ten-year-olds living in Scotland鈥檚 big cities think that cotton comes from sheep. It鈥檚 easy enough to mistake the soft white stuff sold in fluffy balls at the local chemist鈥檚 shop with the curly stuff on a sheep鈥檚 back, especially if the only sheep you鈥檝e ever seen are in books or on TV.
There鈥檚 less excuse for the generations of explorers, scholars and philosophers who believed that the soft fibres from which eastern people wove fine white cloth came from the borametz, or lamb plant, a fabulous creature that was half-plant, half-animal.
Towards the end of the 17th century, the worthies of the Royal Society denounced the 鈥渓amb plant鈥� as a figment of ancient imaginations. But where had people got the idea? The society鈥檚 top minds puzzled for a while then plumped for an object recently sent from China. It was made from the root of a tree fern, but had four legs and was covered with a sort of downy fur. This, the society declared, was the origin of the mythical borametz.
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In its eagerness to nail the myth, however, the Royal Society got it completely wrong. It took two more centuries before the debunkers were themselves debunked and the origin of the borametz was finally explained.
RUMOURS began to circulate in the Middle Ages. Far away in the land of the Tartars lived a thing that was neither plant nor animal, but both. It was called a borametz. None of those who told the tale had actually seen it, but they鈥檇 always met a man who had.
In some versions of the story the 鈥渧egetable lambs鈥� were the fruits of a tree that grew from a round seed like that of a melon. When the fruits ripened, they burst open to reveal tiny lambs with soft white fleeces that the natives used to make fine cloth. In other tellings, the seed gave rise to a lamb that grew on a stalk rooted in the ground, and lived by grazing on any plants it could reach.
The man responsible for spreading the story in Britain was John Mandeville, a 鈥淜nyght of Ingelond鈥� who left home in 1322 and for the next 34 years 鈥渢ravelide aboute in the worlde of many diverse countreis鈥�. His account of what he saw was the medieval equivalent of a bestseller, and was translated into every European language. In Tartary, he wrote, 鈥渢here groweth a maner of Fruyt, as though it weren Gowrdes: and whan thei ben rype men kutten hem ato, an men fynden with inne a lytylle Best, in Flesche, in Bon and Blode, as though it were a lytylle Lomb with outen Wolle.鈥�
There鈥檚 doubt about whether Mandeville ever reached Tartary, but he鈥檇 certainly read the Medieval guide books before putting quill to paper. In 1330, Friar Odoricus, who came from a monastery near Padua, wrote that 鈥渢here grow gourds, which when they are ripe, open and within them is found a little beast like unto a young lamb鈥�. He had heard this from 鈥減ersons worthy of credit鈥�, which was good enough for Mandeville.
With each telling, the story gained new details and greater credibility. But in the 16th and 17th centuries, people learned more about the world and its inhabitants. As doubts crept in, more sceptical travellers set out in search of the mysterious lamb of Tartary. Still it eluded them, yet most came home convinced that it existed. One of these was Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, who represented the Holy Roman Empire at the Russian court in the early 1500s.
The baron had dismissed the sheep-on-a-stalk as fable until he heard it described by a 鈥減erson in high authority鈥� whose father had once been an envoy to the King of Tartary. The envoy had seen, 鈥渁 plant resembling a lamb 鈥� It had a head, eyes, ears and all other parts of the body, as a newly-born lamb. It was rooted by the navel in the middle of the belly, and devoured the surrounding herbage and grass, and lived as long as that lasted.鈥� The lamb also had exceedingly soft wool, and perhaps not surprisingly given its limited mobility, it was a favourite food of wolves. The story convinced the baron.
And so it went on. As soon as anyone voiced doubts, someone else popped up with new 鈥渆vidence鈥� of the lamb鈥檚 existence. In 1605, Frenchman Claude Duret devoted a whole chapter of a book on plants to the borametz. But then, 80 years later, the great traveller Engelbrecht Kaempfer went east looking for it. He found nothing but ordinary sheep. The number of believers was dwindling, and in London the Royal Society decided it was time to kill off the borametz for good. The best way, it felt, was by showing people how the idea had begun.
In 1698, the society received a curio from China, a sort of toy animal made from a plant with a few extra bits stuck on to give it a proper number of legs. This, it reckoned, was what had started the ancient rumours. It was both plant and animal鈥攁 鈥渟pecimen鈥� of a borametz, in fact. Hans Sloane, later founder of the British Museum, described the 鈥渟pecimen鈥� in the society鈥檚 Transactions: it was made from the root of a tree fern, had four legs and a head and 鈥渟eemed to be shaped by art to imitate a lamb鈥�. The four-footed fake also had a 鈥渄own of dark golden yellowish snuff colour鈥濃�攁 sort of golden fleece. Despite this discrepancy in the colour of its 鈥渇leece鈥�, and the fact that tree ferns didn鈥檛 grow in Tartary, the Royal Society now considered the case closed.
And so it was, more or less, until 1887, when Henry Lee, a one-time naturalist at the Brighton Aquarium, pointed out that the society鈥檚 Chinese 鈥渓amb plant鈥� was a red herring. There was, however, a plant that had almost certainly given rise to the notion of the borametz. It grew in the East and its fruits contained soft white fleece like a lamb鈥檚. The plant was cotton.
Lee had been delving into the writings of ancient travellers while researching his books Sea Monsters Unmasked and Sea Fables Explained. As he read he kept coming across descriptions of plants that sounded far more like the prototype borametz than any hairy fern root.
The 5th-century Greek historian Herodotus, for example, wrote that in India 鈥渃ertain trees bear for their fruit fleeces surpassing those of sheep in beauty and excellence, and the natives clothe themselves in cloths made there from鈥�. A century later Nearchus, one of Alexander the Great鈥檚 generals, also reported that 鈥渢here were in India trees bearing, as it were, flocks or bunches of wool, and that the natives made of this wool garments of surpassing whiteness鈥�. And in 306 BC, that reliable botanist Theophrastus added an important detail: people cultivated the plants in rows, and when the pods ripened 鈥渢he wool is gathered from it, and woven into cloths of various qualities鈥�.
The Royal Society, Lee decided, had failed to spot the obvious connection and had settled for something so unlikely it had to be wrong. For Lee, it was easy to see how 鈥渁 plant bearing as its fruit fleeces which surpassed those of lambs in beauty and excellence鈥� became a 鈥減lant bearing fruits within which was a little lamb 鈥︹��
Distorted descriptions of the cotton plants seen in India preceded the actual plants by many years. In the meantime, traders brought samples of cotton 鈥渨ool鈥� along trade routes that passed through the Tartar lands. To those who had never seen raw cotton, this fine 鈥淭artar wool鈥� looked like something that might come from the fleece of a pure white lamb. And in a world inhabited by any number of fabulous beasts, a lamb that grew from a seed wasn鈥檛 so strange 鈥�