Quote:It is possible that they generally associated elephants with the East, maybe even likely.
I have seen a theory that lot of info in bestiaries, including mythical animals, is inspired by the fauna of India which is indeed East.
At some moment armies of Alexander the Great reached India ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ). These people must have seen there a lot of local animals which were unknown to them before - tigers, cobras, giant snakes, rhinos etc. When they returned, their stories reached the ancient Hellenistic world. They were curious and fancy so they preserved. And then they reached Romans, and then they reached medieval world.
Later, due to the appearance of Islam, reaching India became much more complicated. Remember that Columbus was searching for a new way to India and believed first that America is India. So cultural contact with India was limited and these old stories about animals were getting more and more legendary and less and less realistic.
For example:
- unicorn is probably inspired, at least partially, by rhinoceros
- basilisk is inspired by king cobra, many bestiaries say that basilisk may be defeated only by a weasel and in India mongooses indeed hunt for cobras
- dragons may be partially inspired by big pytons of India (quite often dragons are depicted as very similar to snakes)