It is for something as evident as the fact that weasels don’t give birth by the ears. You don’t need Internet or materialism for that.
… do you know where weasels give birth, generally?
In their dens.
You know, places too small to fit a human head inside, even if you managed to lodge a burning candle in there to see.
Weasels weren’t generally kept as house pets. They weren’t being doted on and watched constantly. They weren’t kept in terrariums or confined in the house. Weasels, like cats, were largely left to their own devices even in a domesticated context, not obsessively observed by a class of people with significant leisure time to dedicate to weasel-fancying, carefully watching their pregnant weasel at all hours for the beautiful moment it gives birth. For that matter, many medieval bestiaries differentiate between ferrets (which are domesticated) and other varieties of weasel (which are not).
That appeal to ‘common sense’ also doesn’t explain why other medieval writers note that weasels giving birth from their ears is both false, and a widely-believed in myth, if something that ‘evident’ was simply known.
For that matter, another ‘evident’ myth, spontaneous generation, wasn’t disproven until the 17th century AD, and was still widely believed in up into the 19th century AD.
… do you know where weasels give birth, generally?
In their dens.
You know, places too small to fit a human head inside, even if you managed to lodge a burning candle in there to see.
Weasels weren’t generally kept as house pets. They weren’t being doted on and watched constantly. They weren’t kept in terrariums or confined in the house. Weasels, like cats, were largely left to their own devices even in a domesticated context, not obsessively observed by a class of people with significant leisure time to dedicate to weasel-fancying, carefully watching their pregnant weasel at all hours for the beautiful moment it gives birth. For that matter, many medieval bestiaries differentiate between ferrets (which are domesticated) and other varieties of weasel (which are not).
That appeal to ‘common sense’ also doesn’t explain why other medieval writers note that weasels giving birth from their ears is both false, and a widely-believed in myth, if something that ‘evident’ was simply known.
For that matter, another ‘evident’ myth, spontaneous generation, wasn’t disproven until the 17th century AD, and was still widely believed in up into the 19th century AD.