Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 8, 57): Another case of ingenuity in alarm, is that of the badgers: they ward off men's blows and the bites of dogs by inflating and distending their skin. - [Rackham translation]

Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 2:40): The badger (melo) is so named either because it has a very rounded member (malum) or because it seeks honeycombs and carefully removes the honey (mel). - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]

Gerald of Wales [c. 1146 – c. 1223] (Topographia Hibernica, chapter 20): There is also here the badger or melot, an unclean animal, which bites sharply, frequenting the mountains and rocks. It makes holes under ground for its refuge and protection, scratching and digging them out with its feet. Some of them, whose natural instinct it is to serve the rest, have been seen, to the great admiration of the observers, lying on their backs with the earth dug out heaped on their bellies, and held together by their four claws, while others dragged them backward by a stick held in their mouth, fastening their teeth in which, they drew them out of the hole, with their burdens. - [Forester translation, 1863, chapter 20]

Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Quadrupeds 4.32): Daxus, as he says [i.e. Liber rerum] is an animal about the size of a fox. Its legs are short, not equal on the left and right sides, but shorter on the left side. Whence it comes to pass, that they run vigorously in the ruts which the chariots make by friction, with their feet placed on the right side, and thus escape their pursuers. It has hairy skin and stiff bristles mixed with white and black hairs. Its fatness increases as the Moon waxes, and diminishes as it wanes, so that if it is killed in the last phase of the Moon, no fat is found. Ointments are made from its skin, with which pains in the kidneys and injuries of the limbs are soothed. And this is a strange thing, that although the beast is on the one hand medicinal, yet its bite is usually fatal and very serious (and this is the reason: for it lives by scavenging animals which it finds on the ground, since they are poisonous), and because the poisons infect its teeth, we believe its bite to be fatal, although human experience has proved that even without poisonous food, the teeth of wolves and foxes and many other animals are poisoned. Whence the bites of wolves inflicted on foxes and many wild animals are burned with a hot iron, lest the bite should in any case be harmful and contract corruption. But the poisoned food, by means of the internal nature well arranged, passes into the best matter, and what is on the part of the poison propels the digestion and purifies the rest, and transmits it into the nourishment of the flesh to purify it. And it is for this reason that the skin of the badger is medicinal, but the bite is fatal. This is better seen in the tyrus serpent, which lives on poison, and yet its flesh becomes theriac and is opposed to all poisons. It is said of the badger: anoint those who have a fever with the fat of the badger, and they will be cured. Its brain, well cooked with oil, soothes all pains in the loins. Its blood, mixed with salt and smeared on the limbs, protects against the pestilence of mortality for three days. Its testicles, cooked with honey and eaten on an empty stomach, for three days gives the power of withstanding the cold. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]

Bartholomaeus Anglicus [13th century CE] (Liber de proprietatibus rerum, Book18.102): The Brocke is called Taxus and Melus also, and is a beast of the quantitie of a Foxe, and his skin is full hairie and rough, and is called also Melota. And the Glose saith uppon that worde, Circuerunt in melotis, &c. Ebre. 12. Of this beast that is called Taxus and Melota also, Plin[ius] lib. 8. cap. 39. saith. In such beasts is wit and slight, and holdeth in the breath and blowing, stretcheth the skinne so holding their brethings, when they be hunted and chased with hunters dogges, and so they finde sleight and maner by such strouting out of the skin to eschew and put off the biting of those hounds that so do pursue and follow to noye them, and also for to slay them: and in like wise put they of the smiting of ye hunters: these beasts know when tempest shall fal, & maketh the¯ therfore dens under earth, with divers entrings, & when the Northerne winde bloweth, he stoppeth the North entring with his rough taile, and letteth stande open the South entring, chaunging his hoales, as the winde altereth. In the same dens they make provisions, and gather them store of meate against winter: and somtime if they lacke meate, they take sléepe in stéede of meate, as he saith: for they bée of those kinde of beasts, that hide themselves in winter, and live most parte by sléepe, as it is sayd before of the Mouse. And as Phisiologus saith, there is a maner kinde of Brockes, that gather meat with the female against winter, & laieth it up in his den, and when cold winter commeth, the male dreadeth least store of meate should faile, and refraineth ye female, and withdraweth hir meale, and suffereth hir not to eate hir fill, and shée faineth peace, as it were following the males will, and commeth in on that other side of the den, & openeth hir jawes, and eateth and devoureth and wasteth the meate that is gathered, unwitting to the male. Also he saith yt these beasts hate the Foxe, and fight oft times with him, but when the Foxe séeth, yt he may not for roughnes & hardnes of the skin grieve him, he faineth him as though he were sicke & overcome, and flieth away, and while the Brocke goeth out to get his pray, the Fox commeth into his den, and defileth his chamber with urin and other uncleannes: & the Brocke is squemous of such foule things, & forsaketh his house that is so defiled, and getteth néedfully another dwelling place. - [Batman]