Happy Thought for 26 June 2026

 Have a Happy Thought:

People in the ancient world had… interesting ideas about what animals were out there in the world.

For example, meet the Bonnacon. You see how the people are holding their noses? Apparently this bull-horse mashup excreted very stinky poo at a very high speed whenever it was threatened. (Although if this picture is correct, it is very embarrassed at doing so).

De Natura animalium, ca. 1285, Bibliothèque Municipale de Douai, Ms. 711, f. 8r – Source

Or take the leucrota: an animal the size of a donkey but made up of (from front to back) a horse’s head, a lion’s chest and front legs, but the hind legs of a stag.

Folio 15v - Leucrota. | The Aberdeen Bestiary | The University of Aberdeen

 

Now, you might rightfully say that these are obviously fantasy creatures.

But the thing is, these animals are right in the same “bestiary” (a book about animals, like an illustrated encyclopaedia… remember those?) as animals that we definitely recognize, like lions, tigers, and bears (oh, my!).

 

Dogs were obviously well loved by the writer of the Aberdeen Bestiary (, as “No creature is more intelligent than the dog, for dogs have more understanding than other animals; they alone recognise their names and love their masters.” (Folio 18r - Of the nature of dogs. | The Aberdeen Bestiary | The University of Aberdeen) Although we might not immediately recognize them from the artistic representations…

Image description: “when King Garamentes was caught by his enemies and taken into captivity, two hundred dogs went in formation through enemy lines and led him back from exile, fighting off those who resisted them.”

Birds are often similarly… uhm… distorted? Take these pelicans. Possibly not immediately recognizable by a modern ornithologist. But also the description is… definitely not how we would describe it today: “When it gives birth and the young begin to grow, they strike their parents in the face. But their parents, striking back, kill them. On the third day, however, the mother-bird, with a blow to her flank, opens up her side and lies on her young and lets her blood pour over the bodies of the dead, and so raises them from the dead.” (Yes, the pelican life-cycle was used as a metaphor for Christ):

This Bestiary also contains explanations of fish, trees, other real birds like the blackbird, stork, and hoopoe (yes, a real bird)

Image: Hoopoe (Upupa epops) By Keta - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5195136

As well as cats, mice, donkeys, bees, dolphins and dragons.

Is that a dragon eating an elephant? Yes it is. Folio 65v - De serpentibus; Of snakes. De draconibus; Of the dragon. | The Aberdeen Bestiary | The University of Aberdeen

 

Bonus mixture of mythical and real: a weasel attacks a basilisk (for those who don’t know: a basilisk has a raptor's beak, a cockscomb, wings, a tail, claws, and can kill with a glance.)

Folio 66r - the dragon, continued. De basilisco; Of the basilisk | The Aberdeen Bestiary | The University of Aberdeen

 

After reading through such a list of animals, I definitely would not have been able to say which were real and which not (of course except for the ones I saw and knew myself). But I probably would have felt sorry for the poor bonnacon, who really couldn’t help itself and its fiery, acidic projectile-poo.

The Worksop Bestiary, ca. 1185, Morgan Library, MS M.81, f. 37r 

 

Check out more images of a Bonnacon at Medieval Illustrations of Bonnacons — The Public Domain Review