Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiomara
MicShazam, they're out there, (the bestiaries-- illuminated manuscripts, too) you just have to search. There's more and more PDFs floating around online nowadays. I've seen lots of digitized manuscripts available online lately, too. Though I often just visit this site when I'm looking for a specific ridiculous creature.
This my current favorite bestiary: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A1...-Linnean+works
It's filled with whimsical gibberish, I love it. And LOTS of questionable information about bees.
The title alone is amazing: "The historie of serpents. Or, The second booke of liuing creatures wherein is contained their diuine, naturall, and morall descriptions, with their liuely figures, names, conditions, kindes and natures of all venemous beasts: with their seuerall poysons and antidotes; their deepe hatred to mankind, and the wonderfull worke of God in their creation, and destruction. Necessary and profitable to all sorts of men: collected out of diuine scriptures, fathers, phylosophers, physitians, and poets: amplified with sundry accidentall histories, hierogliphicks, epigrams, emblems, and ænigmaticall obseruations."
No images though unfortunately :c |
There's some good stuff for me to mess around with here. Especially the
Medieval Bestiary : Beast Index link seems like something that could provide hours of fun and inspiration.
I love this bit about dolphins: "Dolphins are the swiftest creature in the sea. They can fly over ships that attack them. They follow the sound of human voices, and gather together in crowds to sing at the sound of music. When dolphins play and leap in strong waves they seem to forecast storms. There is a kind of dolphin in the Nile that has a serrated back, which kills crocodiles by cutting into the soft parts of the belly."