The Tarasque (Occitan: Tarasca) is a creature from French mythology. According to the Golden Legend, the beast had a lion-like head, a body protected by turtle-like carapace(s), six feet with bear-like claws, a serpent's tail, and could expel a poisonous breath. Medieval iconography such as renditions in church sculpture did not necessarily conform to this description in the earlier Gothic period, and examples which seemed to were assigned later, in the 14th century. The six-footed, turtle-shelled tarasque was the form depicted on the city seal of Tarascon around the 15th century, and this held to be the norm in 16th- and 17th-century paintings. As St. Martha purportedly encountered the beast in the act of swallowing a human victim, it has become a stock motif in art to portray the monster swallowing a human (e.g. head first, with the victim's legs still dangling). According to tradition, in 1474, René of Anjou initiated the use of the tarasque in the Pentecostal festival, and later used also on the saint's feast day of July 29. Yearly celebration in the last weekend of June was added in the modern day. The effigy or float (French: char) of the tarasque has been built over the years for parading through town for the occasion, carried by four to a dozen men concealed inside.
Legend
The legend of the Tarasque probably arose in Provence, France, from early to late 12th century. The legend is recorded in several sources, but especially in the story of St. Martha in the Golden Legend (Legenda aurea), which was "the most influential".
Legenda aurea In Provence, France, the monster allegedly inhabited the forested banks of the Rhône between Arles and Avignon, around what is now the town Tarascon (then called Nerluc or 'black place'), but lurked in the river and attacked the men trying to cross it, sinking boats. The creature was described a dragon, half animal, half fish, thicker than an ox, longer than a horse, with "sword-like teeth". The Tarasque (Latin: Tarasconus) was said to have come from Galatia, a cross-breed between the biblical Leviathan and the legendary Onachus (or onacho, or bonacho) of Galatia, this onachus being a creature that retaliated against pursuers by flinging its dung (Latin: stercus) like an arrow, and causing burns. The people besought Saint Martha for help, and she found the creature in the act of devouring a man. Merely by sprinkling holy water and holding up the cross, she caused the creature to become submissive and obedient. She then tied her girdle (to its neck), leading the beast to the villagers who cast rocks and spears at it until it died.
Other sources The account of St. Martha and the tarasque in the Golden Legend ("LA") roughly correspond to the versions of the legend found in the pseudo-Marcella ("V"), and in Vincent de Beauvais's Speculum historiale ("SH"). are near contemporaneous works (late 12th and 13th century), with the pseudo-Marcella probably being the oldest, and dating "between 1187 and 1212 or 1221". The three texts LA, SH, and V are similar in content with only modest variations. There is also a fourth variant Latin account, a "Life of St. Mary Magdalene and her sister St. Martha" (Vita Beatae Mariae Magdalenae et sororis ejus Sanctae Marthae) with somewhat divergent content from the other three, whose authorship had formerly been credited to Raban Maur (d. 856 AD), but since rejected as a false attribution, being the work of an unknown author perhaps as early as the late 12th century, or as late as the second half of the 13th century. The work is referred to as the "pseudo-Raban" by Louis Dumont and others. There is also a brief notice on the tarasque which occurs in Gervase of Tilbury (Gervais de Tilbury). Gervase assigns the habitat of the tarasque (Latin: tarascus) to be an abyss near the city-gates of Arles and the rock/cliff beneath the castle/fort at Tarascon.
Description
As for the description of the tarasque's physical appearance given in the Legenda aurea, it is given a somewhat dissimilar treatment in the corresponding passage in the c. 1200 pseudo-Marcella:
This description is said to "correspond rather closely" to 17th and 18th century iconography in paintings and woodcuts and to the modern-day effigy. Even the turtle-like carapaces (Latin: parmae "shields") is attested in this c. 1200 piece of writing, even though some commentators ventured it to be a 15th-century addition, created out of expedience to conceal the men carrying the beast's effigy paraded through town for the Pentecostal festivities. The head has later been described as being similar to a bull and a lion or having the muzzle/face of a lion, or, having the head of a lion with a black mane.
Tail The "tail of a serpent" detail is given in both the Pseudo-Marcella and the Speculum Historiale. The tail was "long and ringed and looked considerably like that of the scorpion" in a lost sculpture on a face of an old church (Église Sainte-Marthe de Tarascon) according to surgeon-author Laurent Jean Baptiste Bérenger-Féraud. It is a ringed tail, and does turns upright as can be verified in facsimile sketch of the sculpture printed by Faillon. Some modern-day authors have gone a step further, claiming the tarasque's tail ended in a scorpion sting. Or rather, the tail terminated in a (cock's) spur according to writer Jean-Paul Clébert. There has also been past comment that the tail should end in an arrowhead's shape, according to tradition.
Poison breath The pseudo-Raban speaks at length of the poisonous fumes exhaled by the tarasque:
Rather than its eyes literally shooting flames, some French sources take it to be a figure of speech, that "its eyes glare sulfurously". One source (Abbé François Canéto) has Raban Maur stating that the poison breath shot out of the tarasque's nostrils in thick vapours.
Medieval depictions
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