Su, or Succarath is a ferocious beast that lives in the cold, wild country at the tip of South America (Patagonia).
Description
Half tiger and half wolf, it has the head of a beautiful but malicious woman. Its tail looks like a large, flat, green palm leaf.
Behavior
It lived near the banks of rivers and, if it were pursued, took its young on its back, covered them with its tail, and fled. If it is cornered by a hunter, the mother Su will kill her young rather than let them live in captivity, which is why you will never see one in a zoo.
History
Most likely, the creature has been invented by Thevet but later appeared in Edward Topsell’s The Historie of Four-Footed Beastes (1607).
Quote
- The Su, i. e. water, becaufe living by rivers LI
- moftwhat , is found among the Patagons.c.
- Some call it Succarath. it hath a fierce Lions
- looke, yet is bearded from the eare like a man,
- 1hort-haired, the belly Itrutting out,lank flank-
- ed , the tail large and long , as a fquirrclls.
- Tliegiantlike men there,the climate being not
- very hote, wear the skins, for which, wlien
- hunted they lay their young on their back,and
- cover them with their tail, and fo run away,but
- are taken, vvhelps, and all in pits covered with
- boughs. Being faft in, for rage, or generouf-
- nefIe they kill their whelps, and cry hideoully
- to fright the hunters; they flioot him dead with
- arrows, and flea him. Some fain that they in
- fondneffe carry their young to medows, and
- there thev dreffe onch otherwithlicrndsind of
- faire fweet flowers.
- Jonstonus, Joannes, 1603-1675 / A description of the nature of four-footed beasts : with their figures :engraven in brass (1678). Chapter IV. Of the stinking beast, the graffa, and caoch, p. 112.