Eale or Yale, Der Naturen Bloeme manuscript c. 1350, National Library of the Netherlands

THE EALE (or Yale) was a strange bull-like animal native to the land of Aithiopia (Ethiopia) (sub-Saharan Africa). It was equipped with a boar's tusks and a set of rotating horns.

The creature's name was derived from the Greek word ealên, eilô, meaning "to roll back," a reference to its moveable horns.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8. 73 (trans. Rackham) (Roman encyclopedia C1st A.D.) :
"Aethiopia (Ethiopia) produces . . . many monstrosities: . . . Among the same people is also found the animal called the Eale (Yale), the size of a hippopotamus, with an elephant's tail, of a black or tawny colour, with the jaws of a boar and movable horns more than a cubit in length which in a fight are erected alternately, and presented to the attack or sloped backward in turn as policy directs."

Sources:

• Pliny the Elder, Natural History - Latin Natural History C1st A.D.