For What Its Worth, I Listened To The Episode In Question, And I Just Assumed It Was Another One Of Those

For what its worth, I listened to the episode in question, and I just assumed it was another one of those weird things that kept coming up in bestiary descriptions (animals ressurecting each other comes up almost as much as animals hating on snakes... this is all religious stuff, isn't it...).

I was also half convinced that this was going to be a cat (as an aside, if we ever do get a cat entry, I'm going to have to post a picture of my kitty 🐈‍⬛ ).

I feel like @wingedtyger might have something with their suggestion that ferrets or polecats might be the 'house' hreksong (when I was about 6 years old, my neighbour kept ferrets 😆 ), though humans do like to try keeping pretty much anything as pets, and hreksongs are pretty cute and awesome (as well as being fearsome predators - stoats and weasels often take down prey far larger then them!)

Bestiaryposting Results -- Hreksong

Slightly awkward timing on this one: the animal in question happened to come up on a recent episode of our podcast (We literally quoted a line from the Bodley MS 764 entry, because it was relevant to the story we were reading). So any of the artists who listen may have gotten spoilers. (I say "may", but I've already seen one art post that references the episode.) Sorry about that, artists. Kind of a bizarre coincidence, actually -- it's pretty rare that we happen across bestiary material in a narrative text, and the fact that we did so shortly before the relevant entry came up in the rotation... well, the odds are against it.

Anyway, anyone who doesn't know what this is about should check out https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. You can also check the "maniculum bestiaryposting" tag to see what beast is the current prompt. The entry for this week's drawings can be found here:

maniculum.tumblr.com

Bestiaryposting -- Hreksong

As a reminder, all previous entries in this series can be found at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting . The Hreksong is called [et

Art below the cut, roughly chronological, as always.

A mongoose-like creature climbing on a tree trunk, head towards the ground. Five of its young are clinging to its back. The creature has turned its head away from the tree and opened its mouth to reveal a sixth riding within.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) decided that the best interpretation of the information given was that this was a sort of arboreal mongoose that practiced mouthbrooding. If you want to know what the reasoning was there, you should read the linked post -- it all makes sense there. I absolutely love that the one in the picture is opening its mouth to show the baby riding inside. Silverhart indicates that this is a quicker sketch than usual, but frankly their animal-drawing skills are so good that even a quick sketch is impressive from my perspective.

A pen and ink drawing of the upper half of a woman in medieval dress with a linen headband. She is faintly smiling, looking slightly to the left of the picture. She has hair to just below the shoulder, and her left ear is showing. She is casually holding the cooked leg of a bird such as a chicken in her left hand, with a bite taken out of it; she is looking away from this as a small creature hangs from the rafters or beam above, reaching for the food item. This creature has a long body, a pointed nose and ears, and its mouth is agape, revealing two long canine teeth in its lower jaw. It has a fluffy, medium length tail, and it hanging from the beam above by its back legs.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) did separate drawings for the large outdoor version (upper image, carrying its young) and the small indoor version (lower image, stealing someone's food). The linked post, which explains the design in some detail, indicates that CheapSweets was thinking along similar lines as Silverhart -- i.e., what kind of animal is known for hunting snakes? I like the pose in the first image, and I really like the scene depicted in the second one. On one hand, I'm sure having little creatures live in your roof and steal food literally out of your hands is quite frustrating, but on the other hand, it's very funny. Look at that little guy just brazenly stealing some chicken (or whatever type of bird). The idea of them using their back legs to grip rafters for exactly this purpose is excellent.

A drawing of owl-like birds with a brown feather pattern and white feathers framing their facial features. On the right, a large one holds a snake in its beak; on the left, a smaller one holds two juveniles between its wings and torso.

@strixcattus (link to post here) decided these could be birds, and has drawn these owl-like creatures for us. They look a bit surly, but that could just be the feather pattern on their faces. As always, I strongly recommend checking out that linked post, as Strixcattus writes brilliant interpretations of these entries in the register of a modern naturalist to accompany the illustrations.

A drawing of a medieval monk holding a large fluffy orange cat. An even larger cat of similar description, tall enough to reach his waist, is rubbing against his legs affectionately. On the ground to the left is a basket containing two kittens.

@pomrania (link to post here) has noted that cats live in houses and eat mice, and given us this charming domestic scene. They also note the issues with this interpretation in the linked post, which of course you should read. I think the poses of the cats are very well done here; one of those kittens looks like it wants to paw at the monk's belt but can very much not reach.

And now for the Aberdeen Bestiary:

A medieval manuscript illustration with a blue decorative frame and a gold foil background. The illustration depicts what is very clearly a reddish-brown weasel.

I'm not sure about the head proportions -- I'd suggest that the flattened snout is because the artist ran out of space, if it weren't for the fact that they were fine letting the back foot extend into the border -- but that is recognizably a weasel.

A few things to note from this:

1. Medieval people apparently had not only mice in their homes, but weasels, which I'd never really thought about. I'm not sure what the distinction they're drawing between the type you find in your home and the type you find in the woods is about, though.

2. The weasel's healing magic crops up in multiple texts, including the Lais of Marie de France and Volsungasaga. It's less common than you might think to find overlap between bestiary-weirdness and narrative-weirdness, so that's pretty notable.

3. I have no friggin' idea why anyone thought they gave birth through their ears. Baffling.