SALAMANDER

8th March 2024

Photo Credit: mauribo (Getty Images Signature), CANVA

QUOTATION

O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an ever-lasting bonfire night.

Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches,

walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern,

but the sack that thou hast drunk would have bought me lights

as good cheap as the dearest chandler's in Europe.

I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire

any time this two-and-thirty years, God reward me for it.

FALSTAFF: Henry IV P1, Act 3, Scene 3

SALAMANDER (Fire Salamander: Salamandra salamandra)

The quotation above is the only reference to Salamanders in Shakespeare’s works and it alludes to the long standing cultural associations between Salamanders and fire.

Pliny the Elder writing in the first century of the Common Era says of Salamanders: “an animal like a lizard in shape, and with a body starred all over, never comes out except during heavy showers, and disappears the moment it becomes fine. This animal is so intensely cold as to extinguish fire by its contact, in the same way as ice does.” The Salamander is not included in the texts of the Bible but it does appear in the 6th century CE Physiologus which attributes Christian symbolism to a range of animals and birds: “of the lizard which is called the salamander, if it is put into a fiery furnace or an oven for the baths, the fire will be quenched. Such is the salamander’s nature. How much better are those “who through justice quenched the power of fire, and who stopped the mouth of lions” (Heb. 11:33). Topsell (1607) includes several pages of discussion on the distribution and ecology of Salamanders and also a potted history of the fire quenching powers.

Salamanders are amphibians and the Fire Salamander is native to many parts of Central and Southern Europe. Fire Salamanders are classified as Vulnerable and decreasing in the latest IUCN Red List assessment.

More Information

Amphibian and Reptile Conservation ARC: Visit Site

Folger Digital Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

IUCN Global Red List: Common Fire Salamander

Perseus Digital Library: Search Salamander

Curley, M.J. 1979, Physiologus , A Medieval Book of Nature Lore. (translated by Michael J. Curley), University of Chicago Press.

RACE - Reptile Amphibian Conservation Europe: Visit Site

Topsell, E. 1607 A History of Four-footed Beasts (accessed via Archive.org)