Knowing Nature: Bear–Human Bestiality in the Gesta Romanorum

Abstract

The exemplum ‘Two Princes Born of a She-Bear’ from the Gesta Romanorum is unique in its joining of two different folktale types. Billed by twentieth-century editors as ‘Androcles and the Lion’, which reflects the story’s opening, the majority of the plot resembles the ‘Strong John’ narrative, also referred to as ‘Juan Oso’ or ‘John the Bear’, with its story of bestiality. Yet it differs from most of these tales of a bear–human child as well, first by changing a male bear abducting a human woman to a human father and bear mother, and then by having three children split along gendered lines into different species. Looking at this adaptation in light of the medieval encyclopedia tradition and ideas about human and non-human animals, this article argues that the text poses questions about the superiority of humans, the distinction of species, and the necessity of women. Although the story seems to make an effort to preserve ‘natural’ hierarchies, it also leaves open the possibility of dismantling them.