10 fantastic creatures from medieval bestiaries

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Medieval bestiaries - collections of zoological articles detailing various animals in prose and poetry, mainly for allegorical and moralizing purposes - were extremely popular works. They told stories not only about the existing representatives of flora and fauna, but also about fantastic creatures. Most of these bestiaries were published in the 12th and 13th centuries, but they are still interesting today.

1. Yakul

In the 7th century, Isidore of Seville embarked on an ambitious project. He decided to collect all the knowledge of mankind. The result of his work was the encyclopedia "Etymology". One of its sections was devoted to animals, both known and rumored. So, he wrote about the animal, which was mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan - the African flying yakul snake. According to Lucan, when a yakul hunts, it waits for prey in the crown of a tree. After the snake noticed a suitable victim, then it rushed at it with an arrow from the branches. The yakul was also mentioned in the Aberdeen bestiary.

2. Caladrius

The story of the snow-white bird Caladrius is found in many bestiaries. In some ways, this bird looked like a goose with a swan neck. Caladrius possessed incredible healing properties. The droppings of this bird were said to be able to cure blindness when applied directly to a person's eyes. Pliny the Elder claimed that this bird (which he called the ikterus) was especially good at treating people suffering from jaundice. The mythical bird was also able to predict whether a sick person would recover. When the Caladrius landed on the bed of a seriously ill person and looked away from him, this meant that the person would die. If a bird looked directly into a person's face, then it allegedly "pulled" the disease out of him, after which it flew away, and the patient was cured.

3. Bonacon

Bonacon was described by Pliny and was one of the main creatures in the medieval bestiaries. Depicted as having the head of a bull on the body of a horse, the bonacon also featured horns that were bent back. This creature had a very unusual method of self-defense. When the Bonacon was threatened, he threw manure at the enemy, which not only smelled awful, but also burned everything he touched. To date, it has been suggested that the bonacon was in fact a large ungulate like a bison, and it is possible that this whole story came about after the animal was frightened to the point that it lost control of its intestines.

4. Dipsa

Lucan says that dipsa was one of 17 different types of snakes that were created when Perseus chopped off Medusa's head. Blood dripped from the severed head of Medusa, which Perseus took with him, thereby spreading the snakes throughout the world. Dipsa appeared in the deserts of Libya. This snake had incredibly powerful venom, and the victims of its bite gradually went mad with pain as their flesh slowly burned away. These snakes were cursed with endless thirst. Lucan claimed that when his friend was traveling in Libya, he came across a grave with a picture of dipsa. Her fangs were sunk into a man's leg, and a group of women poured water on him in an attempt to stop the agony. The inscription on the grave claimed that the man was bitten while trying to steal the eggs of the snake.

5. Amphisbene

Amphisbene is a venomous snake with a head at each end, allowing it to move easily in any direction. Later, wings, legs and horns were also added to her. The skin of this snake is rumored to be a potent cure for various diseases, but Greek folklore claimed that if a pregnant woman stepped over a live amphisbene, then she was almost guaranteed to have a miscarriage. Roman mythology claimed that if the amphisbene was caught and wrapped around the cane, then it would protect the owner of the cane from the attacks of any creatures. Isidore of Seville claimed that this snake's eyes glow in the dark, like lanterns, and also wrote that it was the only snake that could hunt in the cold.

6. Leocroth

This Indian horse-like creature is the pure embodiment of nightmare. The half-deer-half-lion with the head of a horse had one terrifying feature: a mouth from ear to ear. In this case, the mouth of the leokrota was filled not with teeth, but with a continuous serrated bone plate. This animal supposedly skillfully imitated human speech and screamed at night to lure unsuspecting victims. Pliny claimed that the leocrota was a descendant of Ethiopian lions and hyenas. She was born with the strength of a lion and the craftiness of a hyena and hunted humans in the wooded areas around the villages, relying on their curiosity.

7. Hydra

It was claimed that the hydras lived along the Nile River, where they prowled along the water in search of crocodiles. When this creature found a sleeping crocodile, it crawled into its mouth. It then gnawed a way through the reptile's insides and ate its internal organs, finally gnawing a way out of the crocodile's belly. Isidore wrote about hydras as early as the seventh century. Depictions of hydras vary, with some bestiaries describing them as birds, while others show hydras in the form of a snake.

8. Muskalet

The muskalet was first described in a bestiary written by an enigmatic figure named Pierre de Bove. He claimed that he was only translating the texts, but no one was able to determine which of the earlier works he was translating. Among the animals in his bestiary is a muskalet, a strange creature that lives in trees. Pierre de Bove described it as having the body of a small hare, a mole's nose, weasel ears, and a squirrel's tail and legs.

The muskalet is covered with stiff pig bristles and boar teeth. The animal can jump from tree to tree and emits so much heat that the leaves it touches dry up. The small creature digs holes under the trees, where it kills whatever it finds under the tree.

9. Monoceros

Monoceros is a bizarre variety of the unicorn that has been found in all bestiaries from ancient times to the Middle Ages. It had the body of a horse and the familiar long horn of a common unicorn, but this beast also had elephant legs and a deer's tail. Pliny endowed this creature with the tail of a boar and the head of a deer. The horn of Monoceros was said to have all the highly sought after properties that have been attributed to the horn of a unicorn. Monoceros did not have such a positive disposition as the unicorn: he killed any person he met on his way. Also, this type of unicorn emitted a deafening, icy horror-inducing roar.

10. Salamander

Salamanders are very real, but salamanders in medieval bestiaries were creatures that not only could live in fire, but also exhaled fire themselves. Saint Augustine first wrote that the salamanders are the epitome of the soul's resistance to hellfire, arguing that the salamander's power over fire was proof that something mundane could collide with the fire of hell and not be destroyed.

While the early salamanders of ancient Persia were symbols of divinity, the salamanders of the medieval world were not only flammable but also poisonous. A salamander that fell into a well could poison and kill an entire village.

Many already know funny pictures from the "Suffering Middle Ages" series. A what is actually shown in the miniatures with "funny" signatures, not many people know.