Birds of a Feather?

         A fellow author I’m acquainted with posted a quiz like this on her Instagram a while ago and I thought it was a fun idea.  I’ve been waiting quite some time to do it, and since I’ve just started posting things for March Meet the Maker, it finally seemed to be the right moment.  Here’s how it works…

        I’ve chosen all kinds of little trivia facts about myself, and for each thing that you share with me, give yourself a point.  At the end, tell me how many points we have in common!  According to my calculation there are a total of 48 points possible, including bonuses, but admittedly there’s probably some ambiguity in how one could choose to count things.  That’s fine - the exact score doesn’t matter; it’s just about seeing how we connect.

        The funny thing about putting this together is that of course it’s very difficult and fairly arbitrary to try to pick a handful of things to share.  How can I choose just 9 favorite books, for example?  I first sketched these cards out quite a while ago and if I were starting from scratch today I’d probably make some different choices.  For example, it’s been a while since I even thought about “Ted Lasso,” but I left it on my list because I did enjoy it very much while it was on (and I don’t watch a ton of TV).  So while any list of this sort is woefully incomplete and hardly a perfect reflection, everything on here is certainly true and I stand by it!

I should also note that the items are in no particular order on each card.  So, are you ready?

        Here we go:

1. BOOKS

     Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

     Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

     Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built

     Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

     Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey Series

     Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar

     J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

     Terry Pratchett, Night Watch Series

     Ursula K. LeGuin, The Tombs of Atuan

2. ON-SCREEN

     “Casablanca”

     “Raiders of the Lost Ark”

     “Much Ado About Nothing”

     Wallace & Gromit

     “Ted Lasso”

     Brokenwood Mysteries

     Archaeology Documentaries

3. MUSIC

     Dvorak (especially Symphonies 7 & 9)

     Simon & Garfunkel (especially “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” and “The Sound of Silence”)

     Vivaldi (especially The Four Seasons)

     “I Will Survive” Gloria Gaynor

     Mendelssohn (especially Symphonies 4 & 5)

     Cheesy 80s Music

     Beethoven (especially Symphonies 5 & 9)

     Big Band/Swing

     Assorted…

     +1 Bonus if you play the cello

4. RANDOM LIFE FACTOIDS

     Artist (+1 Bonus for relief printmaking)

     Author (+1 Bonus for writing poetry, speculative fiction, or happy endings)

     Parent (+1 Bonus for twins)

     Quaker

     Teacher (+1 Bonus for teaching middle school or art)

     Amateur Linguist (+1 Bonus for having a degree in linguistics)

5. ASSORTED LOVES & INTERESTS

     Libraries

     Backyard Wildlife

     Mythical Creatures

     Octopuses

     Quiltmaking

     History

     Daffodils

     Purrs

     Houseplants

        (And of course since these are things I love, many of them have shown up in this blog before, so I’ve linked a few things that seemed related.  And if you want to do it on Instagram, you can find that here.)

        How did you score?  I can’t wait to hear how much we have in common!

#MarchMeetTheMaker2026 #MarchMeetTheMaker

Guess That Medieval Beast 9

         It’s been quite a while since our last round of Guess That Medieval Beast, so I’ll just remind you that if you’d like to start at the beginning and test yourself with the earlier rounds, go to the Labels list in the sidebar and click on “game,” which is down near the bottom of the list.

        And now, without further ado, our Round 9 Mystery Creature!  This creature appears in a copy of Der naturen bloeme from about 1350, one of those works that is just beginning the transition from medieval bestiary to renaissance encyclopedia.  To describe this thing is perfectly straightforward: it’s a fish with hands.  It seems to be using its hands to reach its big, toothy mouth, but that’s about all the picture tells us, although it does have very nicely detailed gills, scales, and fins, and an attractive coloration.  Go ahead and make your guess: what sort of creature is this?

        Squid!

        Despite the oddity of the depictions, this is another one that makes perfect sense when you think about it.  In a world in which any creature living in the ocean was considered a fish, a squid is a fish with long arms, right?  Sometimes the arms are reaching toward the mouth, while in other depictions they look more like they’d be used for walking; sometimes the arms have monstrous claws while in other depictions they look almost like human hands.

        The only thing that puzzles me is that squid have been eaten in Europe for centuries (if not millennia) and I’d have thought that these artists would have been sufficiently familiar with calamari to know that it doesn’t look like this!  But perhaps these manuscripts were not made in coastal communities, or perhaps the people copying 

and illustrating the books simply didn’t make the connection between the Latin lolligo and whatever it is they called squid in their local vernacular.  I do notice that even the versions written in Dutch refer to the creature as “lolligo.”

        I’ve also included two illustrations of a related creature: the polipo, aka octopus.  Not surprisingly, these two creatures are often depicted in very similar ways, but the octopus does have another iconographic variant in which it is shown grabbing a human.  I’ve included one in which the octopus appears to be caressing the man, although I’m afraid its intentions are not so benign.  It also has ears and little tiny wings (which I assume are actually supposed to be fins.)  However, I particularly enjoy the final illumination in which the huge creature has reached right up into the boat to seize the sailor, and is staring him down with great intensity.  (The second sailor is clinging to the handle of his oar, but it sort of looks as if he’s taking pictures on his cell phone.  Finally we’ll have solid photographic evidence of the long-fabled giant man-eating octopus!)

        These creatures have gotten a bad rap in mythology (blame it on Pliny), but truly they are strange and alien beasts, and I don’t think our medieval illuminators can be judged too harshly for not knowing what to make of them.

[Pictures: Lolligo, illumination from Der naturen bloeme (The Flower of Nature) by Jacob van Maerlant, c 1350 (Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

Lolligo, illumination from Liber de natura rerum, 1280 (Image from BMV);

Lolligo, illumination from Der naturen bloeme, c 1300-1325 (Image from British Library);

Lolligo, illumination from Der naturen bloeme, c 1450-1500;

Polipo, illumination from Der naturen bloeme, c 1300-1325 (Images from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

Polipo, illumination from Liber de natura rerum, 1280 (Image from BMV).]

Guess that Medieval Beast 8

         This beast is one that, to be fair, is pretty darn bizarre and amazing in real life, so I’m not going to say that the medieval artists have made it stranger than it actually is.  After all, this illustration basically looks like a rainbow-colored horse, which is really not so crazy.  This picture comes from a bestiary from the mid-thirteenth century, and the illuminator has done a beautiful job of it, too.  We’re treated to borders and backgrounds, lots of colors including gold leaf, and even a bonus owl perched on the background tree.  But what is this creature?  I’ll give you a hint: it’s not a My Little Pony.  So, what do you think it is?

        Chameleon!

        Okay, why does the artist depict it in such an equine manner?  I really can’t tell you, but I do think we should give him credit for the rainbow colors.  I think they represent an attempt to depict the fact that the chameleon does change color, which is pretty fantastic.

        What else did medieval artists know about the chameleon?  Well, they knew it had camel in the name (especially in Latin, where it is not spelled with that silent H).  And that must mean that a chameleon would have humps, right?  So these next two illustrations, from the early fourteenth and late thirteenth centuries respectively, depict the chameleon with camel-appropriate humps.  Illustration 2 doesn’t otherwise look too crazy for a lizard of some sort, and illustration 3, while it gives the “serpent” only two legs, does also give it multiple colors, not to mention a rather attractive little pattern down its back.

        Of course the other half of the chameleon’s name is lion, and this fourth illustration, from the late fifteenth century, depicts our lizard as a delightfully shaggy leonine beast, complete with mane.  And today’s final chameleon may well be lion-inspired as well, although it looks more canine to me.  Funnily enough, unlike many of the crazy medieval illustrations we’ve seen, this illustration makes the chameleon look like a far more ordinary and boring beast than it actually is in real life.

        This does lead to the inevitable question of why the chameleon seems to be named after two large mammals with which it really should have nothing in common.  Well, some chameleons do have a sort of broad, rounded crest which, at an imaginative stretch, could be seen as reminiscent of a lion’s mane.  But the camel is just an accident.  The Greek word khamai means “on the ground,” so the chameleon was really named a “ground lion,” or “earth lion.”  Personally, I think if anything "tree lion" would have made more sense.

[Pictures: Chameleon, illumination from English Bestiary, 1226-1250 (Image from Bodleian Libraries);

Chameleon, illustration from Der naturen bloeme, c 1300-1325 (Image from British Library);

Chameleon, illumination from Liber de natura rerum, c 1280 (Image from Bibliotheque municipale de Valenciennes);

Chameleon, illumination from Explication des évangiles du temps et des saints, 1471 (Image from Bibliotheque nationale de France);

Chameleon, illumination from Der naturen bloeme, c 1350 (Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek).]

Guess that Medieval Beast 7

         This is a beast that is not featured in the true bestiaries, but does regularly show up in the various encyclopedias of natural history that are closely related.  This particular depiction comes from the hand of an artist we’ve seen before in Medieval Beast Number 2.  It’s a copy made around 1450-1500 of Der Naturen Bloeme, which was originally written about two centuries earlier, and it has an attractive blending of color and rich gold background.  This creature clearly lives in the water, where it has the tusks and trunk of an elephant, the tail of, perhaps, a lizard, dorsal and pelvic fins of a fish, and hind feet with cloven hoofs like a goat.  Like many of this artist’s subjects, it looks fairly friendly and I find it charming…  But what do you suppose it could possibly be?

        Hippopotamus!  Our word hippopotamus is simply the Greek word for “river horse,” so it’s obviously the same thing as what the medieval writers call equs fluvius (or various spelling variations), which is “river horse” in Latin.  However, the medieval natural historians also list a separate beast which they call the yphotamus (or various spelling variations), which is obviously derived from the Greek word hippopotamus.  I’m not sure in what way these two beasts are differentiated, and unfortunately I have neither the time nor the Latin to figure it out, but for our purposes of looking at how medieval artists depicted animals, I’m counting them both as hippos.

        The depictions of hippos take three primary directions.  First is the one with which we opened, which combines fish, elephant, and perhaps a cow.  You can sympathize with where each of those elements might have come from as someone tried to describe an animal almost as big as an elephant, with tusks, too, that lives in the water like a fish…  The second standard version is used most often for the “river horse”, and that’s a very literal-minded horse-like beast standing in the water.  The second illustration today comes from the same work as the first, but the first is the yphotamus, while the second is the equus fluvius.  I’ve also included a water horse from an Arabic bestiary that’s almost purely equine.

        The third direction some artists go is more wildly imaginative.  Our fourth illustration has a body that’s really not bad, and the tusks aren’t unreasonable, either.  But then why on earth does it have a beak?  The clue may be in the next illustration, which, although it is an ypotamus, is clearly very horse-inspired.  It, too, has a beak, however, and I wonder whether the artist might have been influenced by the hippogriff.  The name is similar enough to suggest that the beasts might be related, and the hippogriff has a beak from its griffin half.  As for my final illustration today, it’s just plain nuts.  Clearly the thing this artist was most inspired by was the fact that hippos sometimes attack and overturn boats, so this fish-tailed monster is attacking a boat with its long, clawed monster arms and a gleefully vindictive grin.

        It really is fun to imagine how we might visualize creatures we’d never seen if we had only these sorts of descriptions to guide us.

[Pictures: Iphotamus, illumination from Der Naturen Bloeme (The Flower of Nature) by Jacob van Maerlant, c 1450-1500;

Equus fluminis, illumination from Der Naturen Bloeme by Maerlant, c 1450-1500 (Images from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

Faras al-Ma (Water Horse), illumination from Manafi’ al-hayawan by Ibn Bakhtishu, 1300-1330 (Image from Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art);

Ypothamus, illumination from Liber de natura rerum, 1280 (Image from Bibliotheque municipale de Valenciennes);

Ypotamus, illustration printed by Johan Prüss in Ortis sanitatus, 1499 (Image from Boston Public Library);

Equs fluvius, illustration from Der naturen bloeme, 1300-1325 (Image from British Library).]

Guess that Medieval Beast 6

         For those of you who are just joining us, feel free to get caught up with prior episodes of everyone’s favorite game: Guess that Medieval Beast 1; 2; 3; 4; and 5.

        Now here’s number 6, another adorable medieval illustration for you to identify.  This one comes from a martyrology made in France between 1250-1290.  You can see that the illuminator was a skilled artist who put excellent craftsmanship into the work: detailed border, intricate background, smatterings of gold leaf, and the fine details depicting our mystery beast itself.  It’s furry, from the charming tuft on its head, down its hairy spinal crest, to the feathery tip of its delightfully long, sinuous tail.  It’s got large expressive eyes, cute yoda-like ears, and six legs.  It’s also blue.  It’s hard to tell how big it’s meant to be since it appears to dwarf the trees between which it lies.  So, what furry, blue, six-legged, long-tailed, tree-sized creatures do you know of?  Make your guess as to what this thing could be!

        Scorpion!  Yes, this is a scorpion, even though the artist doesn’t seem to have gotten a single thing right about it.  In fact, scorpions are another of those creatures that is depicted in astonishing variety by medieval artists.  Of course there are no scorpions in northern Europe, including France, so the artists had probably never actually seen a scorpion, but still...  Scorpions appear in bestiaries, but they are also quite common in Books of Hours because of Scorpio’s role in the zodiac.  So quite a few medieval artists found themselves having to make a picture of this creature they’d never seen.

        In these sample scorpions I’ve chosen for you today we have everything from 4 to vaguely unnumbered legs, tails that are long or super short and stubby, ears more often than not…  Unlike many bestiary creatures that have a common iconography even when they aren’t very accurate, with these scorpions there’s quite a lot of variety in which aspects artists have managed to depict.  The second picture gets at the piercing sting on the tail, the third has the tail arched up in a somewhat scorpion-like 

way, and the fourth has properly pincerlike claws.

        However, only the final picture is really on the right track with 8 legs plus claws, a curved tail with a stinger at the tip, a suggestion of segmentation down the tail, and not a trace of ears, fur, or other mammalian traits.  This one comes from a coat of arms recorded in a sixteenth century book of heraldry, and I wonder whether the arms belonged to a knight who had been on crusade or otherwise encountered actual scorpions at some point, who therefore knew what he wanted his charge to look like.  Personally, however, I find the less realistic scorpions positively charming, especially the first and third.  They might even make delightful pets.

[Pictures: Scorpio, illumination from Martyrologe-Obituaire de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 1250-1290 (Image from Bibliotheque nationale de France);

Scorpion, illumination from bestiary, 1226-1250 (Image from Bodleian Libraries);

Scorpions, illustration from bestiary, 1236-1250 (Image from British Library);

Scorpio, illustration from Mirabilia Mundi, after 1277 (Image from The J. Paul Getty Museum);

Scorpion, coat of arms from Wappenbuch by Conrad Grünenberg, 1483 (Image from Bayerische StaatsBibliothek).]

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).]

Guess that Medieval Beast 4

         It’s time for Round 4 of everyone’s favorite game, and this time it’s a creature I’ve discussed in this blog before.  This illumination appears in a bestiary from 1270, from the J. Paul Getty Museum.  It certainly is a beautiful illustration, with its patterned borders and background, multicolored feathers, and touches of gold…  But what is it?  It has the basic body of a dog, wings like a bird, and it’s placed in something that looks more like a sculpture by Dale Chihuly than anything else (but I’ll give you a hint, in case you haven’t guessed: it’s a fire).  This is one of the creatures that is depicted in quite a broad variety of ways in different bestiaries, but this is nevertheless one of the standard visions.  So, what creature do you think this thirteenth century artist was trying to depict?

        Salamander!

        You can read my previous posts about the fantastical “facts” attributed to the salamander, and how the innocent amphibian got morphed into a mythological creature, here.  One of the things I find most interesting about the medieval depictions of the creature is that, unlike crocodiles or sea turtles, salamanders are perfectly common throughout Europe.  It seems as if enough people should have seen one to be able to recognize that in fact a salamander 

does not greatly resemble a winged dog.  However, for the bestiary illustrators, realism was not the greatest goal.  They were more 

concerned to follow conventions laid down by past “experts,” to present meaningful iconography, and to inspire a sense of wonder in a world of spiritual meaning.

        Let’s look at a selection of other medieval illustrations of salamanders.  You can see that they can have anywhere from 0 to 6 legs, plus wings; they can be furred or striped or smooth; they usually (but not always) have visible external ears; and they are sometimes depicted in trees (where they are supposed to poison the fruit) or going into wells (where they are supposed to poison the water).  The one really reliable trait in their illustrations is the fire.  Salamanders are almost always depicted with tongues of red flames about them.

[Pictures: Salamander, illumination from bestiary, 1270 (Image from J. Paul Getty Museum);

Salamanders, illumination from “Aberdeen Bestiary,” 1200 (Image from University of Aberdeen);

Salamanders, illumination from bestiary, c 1200-1210 (Image from the British Library);

Salamanders, illumination from bestiary, thirteenth century (Image from Biblitheque nationale de France);

Salamander, illumination from Der naturen bloeme by van Maerlant, 1350 (Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

Salamander, illumination from bestiary, 1277 or after, (Image from Getty Museum).]

Guess that Medieval Beast 3

         It’s time for another round of everyone’s favorite game!  This one is a little different because unlike most of our creatures, the craziness of today’s beast is not the standard medieval portrayal.  It appears to be the rather random personal interpretation of the illustrator of a copy of Der naturen bloeme from the first quarter of the fourteenth century.  I cannot read the medieval Dutch text to see whether there’s any clue as to why this illuminator thought the beast should look like this, and I certainly can’t think of any reason in the usual descriptions of the creature.  So, being forewarned that it’s random, make your guess!

        Lynx!

        Some bestiaries portray the lynx as a fairly generic beast, more canine-looking than feline.  However, when the lynx is portrayed with a distinctive iconography, it looks like it’s peeing on a ball.  This is because the urine of the lynx hardens into a precious stone, and that’s what we’re actually seeing in the illustrations.  The lynx covers its urine in sand (which certainly sounds like a cat) to keep people from finding the flame-colored stone.  The other possible reason for covering the urine is to make it harden into stone more quickly.  Neither explanation really gives a reason for why the the lynx should care, since no one mentions that 

it actually has any use for the stone itself.  The stone seems to have the general properties of amber.  The other important fact about lynxes is that their eyesight is so sharp they can see through walls.

        I’ve included a couple of peeing lynxes.  The first is not at all subtle.  The second is a little more discreetly difficult to see, but at least the small stone is accurately flame-colored.

[Pictures: Lynx, illumination from Der naturen bloeme, c 1300-1325 (Image from the British Library);

Lynx, illumination from the Bestiary of Joachim of Fiore, end of 13th century (Image from Digital Bodleian);

Lynxes, illumination from the “Rochester” bestiary, c 1230-1240 (Image from the British Library).]

Guess that Medieval Beast 2

         Now you know how to play the game, so here’s another illustration for you to identify.  This one comes from a manuscript of Der Naturen Bloeme dating to about 1450-1500, a relatively late copy of a work, an encyclopedia of natural history, that was written about 200 years earlier, based on another work even older than that.  Such is the way of medieval books.  What I like best about this creature is how very happy it is.  It looks just a little mischievous, but in the most good-natured possible way.  What creature is this cheerful fish-thing meant to be?  Make your guess, and then…

        Sea turtle!  When you think about it, it really makes perfect sense: something that swims in the ocean like a fish, but has four legs, and is covered with hard shields around its body.  Voila!

        I have included two more sea turtles for you.   The second turtle clearly follows the same model, although where the first was smiling, this is grimacing ferociously with all its un-turtle-like teeth.  The third is quite a different look, evoking the aspidochelone with what appears to be shrubbery growing on its shell, although perhaps it’s just roughly textured.  The feet are distinctly not flippers, and the face suggests that the artist was imagining this armored beast as being something like a hedgehog.  

All three of these turtles are from different copies of the same book, which is because the true bestiaries tend to be not much interested in sea creatures, with few descriptions and even fewer illustrations.  We have to look to the encyclopedias of natural history to find sea turtles, whether grouchy or happy.

[Pictures: Sea turtle, illumination from Der Naturen Bloeme (The Flower of Nature) by Jacob van Maerlant, c 1450-1500 (Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

Sea turtle, illumination from Der naturen bloeme, c 1350 (Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

Sea turtle, illumination from Der naturen bloeme, c 1300-1325 (Image from the British Library).]

Guess that Medieval Beast 1

         I have a new game for you to play, which will be fun for all.  It’s true that it doesn’t feature block prints, and its connection to fantasy is only the sort of inadvertent fantasy spawned by the wild imaginations of ignorant medieval illuminators.  Nevertheless, it amuses me, and I thought it might amuse you.  So without further ado, let’s get started.  Round 1!

        Here is an illustration from a manuscript that was completed in 1471 and resides in the collection of the Bibliotheque nationale de France.  The book relates characters from the gospels to the saints and the Old Testament, but along with this content there are bonus illustrations providing a bestiary cycle along the bottoms of the pages.  I have censored the places in the image where the illustration is labelled, just in case you are someone who would look for a clue in the medieval Latin.  So, what are these charming, furry, blue critters?

        Crocodiles!

        It should not really be surprising that your average European illustrator had never seen a crocodile, so they did the best they could based on the descriptions they’d heard.  Some of the more fantastical attributes of crocodiles in bestiaries can be seen in these additional crocodile illustrations: sporting wings and anywhere from 2 to 6 legs, having a serpent (the hydrus) slide into their mouths and then eat its way out through their bellies, and having their heads on upside-down.  That last is because of the description that a crocodile’s lower jaw stays still while its upper jaw opens - not true, but also not an unreasonable interpretation given the way it looks when a crocodile opens its mouth wide.  Bestiaries are also the source of the myth that crocodiles weep hypocritical tears after eating a person.

        All these  variations make crocodiles one of the more diversely portrayed beasts in bestiaries.  Some of them are certainly pretty unrecognizeable, which is their charm, but I’ve also included a couple of crocodiles that are really not bad.  Perhaps these illuminators had actually been to Egypt and seen crocodiles, or perhaps they’d just seen other illustrations from those who had.  In any case, while we’re playing the game of Guess that Medieval Beast because it’s funny to see how far off the mark these pictures could get, it’s also good to remember that there was more knowledge around in the middle ages than we sometimes give them credit for.

        Be sure to come visit again for future rounds of Guess that Medieval Beast!

[Pictures: Crocodiles, illumination from Explication des évangiles du temps et des saints, 1471 (Image from Bibliotheque nationale de France);

Crocodile, illumination from English bestiary, c 1201-1225 (Image from Bodleian Libraries);

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

Crocodile, illumination from French bestiary, c 1250-1260 (Image from Bibliotheque Nationale de France);

Crocodile, illumination from French bestiary, 13th century (Image from Bibliotheque Nationale de France);

Crocodile, illumination from Bestiarius Philippi Taeoniensis, 14th century, (Image from Kongelige Bibliotek);

Crocodile, illumination from English Bestiary, c 1225-1275 (Image from British Library);

Crocodile, illumination from Italian Bestiaire d’Amour, c 1290 (Image from Morgan Library);

Crocodile from Rochester Bestiary, c 1230-1240 (Image from British Library).]