Panotti

Depiction of Panotti in the Nuremberg Chronicle.

The Panotti (also Phanesii, Panotii and Panotioi, from the Greek words πᾶν and οὖς for "all ears") were a mythical race of people, described as possessing large ears that covered their entire bodies.^[1][2]

Pliny the Elder

In AD 77–79, the classical writer Pliny the Elder published his thirty-seven volumes of encyclopedic works known as the Natural History containing entries of both the real and the imaginative.

In the Natural History, Pliny writes about the strange race of people known as the Panotti who live in the "All-Ears Islands" off of Scythia. These people there have bizarrely large ears that are so huge that the Panotti use them as blankets to shield their body against the chills of the night.^[1] Their ears were used in lieu of clothing.^[2]

The map of the world drawn by Henricus Martellus Germanus in about 1491 describes the "Panotii" as living in southern Asia.^[3]

Other mentions

• Pomponius Mela writes that they lived near the Orkney Islands, sharing an island with two other peoples: the Oeonae (who eat only oats and marsh bird eggs) and the Hippopodes (who possess the feet of horses).
• Isidore of Seville also mentions the Panotii.
• They appear in the novel Baudolino by Umberto Eco.
• One of the four narrators in the novel The Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne M. Valente is a panotii by the name of Imtithal, a storyteller and nanny to three royal children.

See also

• Pandi (legendary creature)
• Stretching (body piercing)

References

External links

• Dave's Mythical Creatures and Places
• Monstrous Bestiary

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