Guess that Medieval Beast 5

         Today’s beast for you to guess is not from a manuscript, but from a stone carving at the Rock of Cashel in Ireland.  I don’t have information on this carving in particular, but it probably dates from the 12th or 13th century, along with the majority of structures at the site.  It represents a creature that medieval artists loved to portray, some reasonably accurately, and others quite wildly off-base.  To be fair, it is a hard beast to get your head around if you’ve never seen one in real life.  So, make your guess and then…

        Elephant!

        Medieval artists knew that elephants are big - big enough that sometimes they had little buildings on their backs in which people could ride.  But this left a wide range of interpretation, and while the structure on the back was a standard part of the iconography, some skeptical artists had difficulty imaging the elephant as much bigger than an ox, while others depicted elephants large enough to carry entire fortresses made of solid stone.

        They also knew that elephants had tusks and trunks.  The tusks are most often drawn like the tusks of a boar, something European artists were familiar with.  The trunk, not surprisingly, can get a little odd.  Is it like a boar’s snout, as in our carving from Cashel?  Is it like a trumpet?  It is usually depicted with a flared bell like a trumpet, and often colored or textured differently from the rest of the elephant’s face, but its length ranges all over the place.

        Nowadays one of the most iconic facts about elephants is their large ears, but this seems not to have been an important part of medieval lore about elephants.  Some bestiary elephants have large ears, but some are small, and some have no ears at all.  Some ears perk up, while others flop down.  They are often ruffled or frilled, but sometimes they’re quite smooth.

        I hope you enjoy this diverse and delightful herd!

[Pictures: Elephant, stone carving from Cashel, Ireland, probably 12-13 c (photo by AEGN, 2015);

Elephant, illumination from the Peterborough Bestiary, c. 1300-1310 (Image from Cambridge and Stanford Libraries);

The Land of India, illumination from the Mirror of History, c. 1475 (Image from The J. Paul Getty Museum);

Elephant, illustration from Der naturen bloeme by J. van Maerlant, 1350 (Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

Elephant detail in decoration for Deuteronomy, Pentateuch, c 1300-1325 (Image from British Library);

Elephant, illustration from Der naturen bloeme by J. van Maerlant, c. 1300-1325 (Image from the British Library);

Elephant, illumination from bestiary c. 1226-1250 (Image from Bodleian Libraries);

Elephant, illustration from Das Buch der Nature by K. von Megenberg, 1442-1448 (Image from Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg).]