Beastiaries

[sknox]

This is from my catalog of Net Treasures, which is eclectic and ranges beyond fantasy writing. If you're looking for exotic beasts that have appeared in the historical record, then this is your stop.

Net Treasures #27

Medieval Bestiary

The Medieval Bestiary

Very old, not having been updated in a year or so, but still being maintained by David Badke, its author. Excellent resource that includes information on stones and plants as well as animals, all tied back to primary sources.

 

[Abernovo]

Right on the front page, it quotes from the Aberdeen Bestiary.

If anyone wants to look at that original book, it is online here, searchable through the manuscript index, and comes with translations (basilisks can only be killed by weasels*). It's quite wordy, but a good example of its kind. I've seen the actual book under glass.

tied back to primary sources.

That website, as you say, hasn't been updated, so some of the external links no longer work.

*They suggest this comes from mongooses killing cobras. So, someone probably told them about what this guy, whose sister's friend's daughter had married a trader who told some wild tale about a small, long creature, who lived in the ground, and took on the most savage snakes ever (they were this long, honest!). How to distract a tiger chasing you is also pretty funny -- well, so long as you're not the one being chased by a tiger.

Sorry for the hijack, sknox. I've long been a cheerleader for my alma mater.

 

[sknox]

Hyperlinks are the great strength but also the great weakness of the WWW. This was quite a topic among historians back in the mid-90s, but seems to have been rather forgotten now.

Oh look, I hijacked my own thread!

 

[CTRandall]

Hyperlinks--I think I saw that in a medieval Canadian bestiary. It's a beast a little larger than a house cat and, in place of hair balls, it constantly coughs up unwanted "facts". It's also excellent at stalking threads, grabbing them in its paws and mangling them into un-unentanglable knots.

 

[sknox]

You are perhaps thinking of the rare Hyperlynx, a beast frequently overlooked nowadays as it appears only in text form.