Whag If I Want To (macquarie Harbour July 23)

whag if i want to (macquarie harbour july 23)

A Mélange of Miscelaneous Lizards

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Pencil sketch only this week, due to various reasons I didn't get the opportunity to ink it (this was finally going to be my second attempt at Mike Mignola's style), maybe I will repost later if I have the time and energy to tackle the inking at a later date, but I wanted to get what I did have up.

Original description and a couple of brief notes below the cut;

Nglushogog

The Nglushogog is so called because it has the face of a frog.

Lots of inspiration from leopard geckos, particularly in terms of its tail.

Hrutdearya

The Hrutdearya is a lizard which goes blind when it grows old; it enters a crack in a wall and, looking toward the east, it bends its gaze on the rising sun and regains its sight.

A bit of inspiration from skinks and anoles here.

Rukhgarukh

The Rukhgarukh gets its name from its colouring. For it is adorned on its back with shining spots like stars. Ovid says of it: ‘Its name fits its colour; it is starred on the body with spots of various colours’ (see Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5, 461). It is said to be so hostile to scorpions, that the sight of it paralyses them with fear.

As this is the most aggressive and actively described of the three, I went for something with a good gape display, in this case a monitor lizard, with star-shaped osteoderms on its back. It's menacing another strange creature that might be familiar...

Hey you know that song that goes na na na na na na na na na na na na na na

What’s the first song that just came to your mind?

if you fuckers do the skeleton war shit again this year we’re deleting the website for real

Thanks Mac, and I feel like we all had a lot of fun with this one, particularly with the Hreakgleav and a couple of others!

A lot of these track really well (I absolutely love the description of the Klethghrom/peacock), although I feel the author might be being overly charitable about the Burngraega/Swan's song (I assume this ties in with the old fable about swans singing sweetly before they die?)

Couple of extra takeaways;

The Hrongnewit / kite was an interesting one, a ubiquitous scavenger in the middle ages in Britain (think a cross between seagulls and pigeons, but a lot faster), now fortunately making a comeback (I actually saw one a couple of weeks ago!). They're not that small, but maybe the 'puny' refers to its spirit (compared to some of the other bold and glorious birds of prey we've come across in our bestiary odyssey)? Regretfully, the use of the term 'shite-hawk' in the middle ages appears to be apocryphal...

There's also the Lokfotreag / Hoopoe (at least they got the colour right!). I wanted to give something a hoopoe-like crest here, but I wasn't expecting this descrption to be for that particular bird...

I've started feeling a little defensive of the hoopoe, to be honest - 'the filthiest of birds', associated with demons and black magic. They're just little guys! With cool crests and rad orange plumage and an awesome 'upupu' call...

Then I did a little bit of research and found out that they are violent birds with oil glands that stink like rotting meat, the chicks can direct streams of excrement towards predators, live in a dirty nest and regularly practice cannibalism on one another...

Fair enough then... 😐

Bestiaryposting Results: Miscellaneous Birds

So! This is the first in our six-week wind-down of Bestiaryposting, where we run through the Honorable Mentions that appear in the Aberdeen Bestiary but didn't get their own post here because the author of the Bestiary and I have different goals.

If you don't know what any of that means, you can find out at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.

To see the entry our artists are working from, click here:

To see the entry people are drawing now, so that you can potentially join in, click here:

Art is below the cut, in roughly chronological order.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) decided to do Literally All of the birds. I am fascinated by the detail here; I particularly like the pose on the Hreakgleav, and the feathers on the Klethghrom. I would direct anyone trying to figure out which is which to the linked post, which contains a key and brief descriptions of each.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has also given us a tree full of birds. The explanation in the linked post of which is which and what they were inspired by is illuminating (pun not intended), so check that out. I especially enjoy the interpretations of the Klethghrom and the Lokfotreag. (And thank you for providing alt text.)

@wendievergreen (link to post here) has drawn three of the birds in their always-charming style. For explanations, close-ups, and individual treatments of each, please see the linked post. I really like the tail on the Hreakgleav and the... frankly insane look of the Klethghrom. (Also thank you for providing alt text.)

All right, we're going to identify these rapid-fire because there are a bunch of them and I'm not going to hand you a whole-ass essay here. Readers are encouraged to add their own commentary.

Tluftasong

The manuscript identifies this one as "night owl", but I've seen other sources refer to this entry as the "night heron". I'll leave that one to people who know birds more.

Lokfotreag

This is the hoopoe. Which, as listeners to the podcast know, you can trade to demons for perpetual access to great parties. The illustration is very cool, and seems to show the young birds rejuvenating their aging parent.

Hurrashbeg

Really love the Stylized Plant, of course. One of the things that really strikes me about medieval manuscript art is how particular things that Definitely Don't Exist keep cropping up in different manuscripts, looking pretty much the same. Like, unless this is by the same artist who did the Rutland Psalter, it shows an interestingly consistent artistic tradition -- I swear that's the exact same plant, and in a couple other places in the manuscript they have the exact same wyvern.

Anyway, those are clearly magpies. I don't know why they're being shot at.

Konchilkuk

This one didn't get an illustration, but it's the woodpecker.

Wobrahfmet

Yep, that sure is a raven. They actually have a really long entry, but it's mostly about what they symbolize.

Hrongnewit

This one is the kite. Yeah, that looks pretty believable.

Klomurgrae

This is... apparently the ibis. Also, from the context of the entry, I think it's intended to be standing on a snake. Neither of those look like the things they are supposed to be.

Zagsmenrok

This is the blackbird. I have no explanation for why it's brown. The illustrator clearly has access to black ink.

Hreakgleav

Yep, that's very clearly an owl.

Wahrembeag

It tickles me that these are right next to each other, because there's a moderately-well-known Middle English poem called "the Owl and the Nightingale". This is pure coincidence; they're not together in the bestiary, there are a few birds in between.

Oh yeah, this is the Nightingale.

Sarbrufeat

This is the heron. The illustration seems broadly correct, but do herons come in white? That's an egret, surely.

Keltrumram

This is the coot -- doesn't look like one to me, but maybe the artist and I are familiar with different species of coot. Readers may recall its cameo in the Eagle entry; its own is unfortunately rather shorter.

Grozfarwat

Meet the quail. I was initially confused, but apparently the plume thing I associate with quails is not actually common to all species of quail. So... yeah, good quail.

Mortelgeng

Very definitely a crow.

Burngraega

Also very identifiable, here's the swan. Head and beak seem a bit flatter and wider than I would expect, though.

Klethghrom

This was basically the poster child for "too obvious to get its own entry". Here's the peacock.

And that's it for this week, it's late. Talk amongst yourselves, or tell me what you think about all these birds.

there is still time. there is still time. until your bones are in the fucking ground there is still time.