Hreksong - Tumblr Posts

The Wily Hreksong

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge from @maniculum - two pictures this week, the first, the forest-dwelling Hreksong;

The second, the type of Hreksong that lives in your house;

Jinhao shark fountain pen with fine, hooded nib, with Monteverde Raven Noir ink, over initial pencil sketch.

Reasoning below the cut;

"The Hreksong is called [etymology redacted]. It is cunning by nature; when it has produced its offspring in its nest, it carries them from place to place, settling them in a series of different locations. It hunts snakes and mice. There are two kinds of Hreksong. One, of very different size from the other, lives in the forest. The Greeks call these [redacted]; the other roams around in houses. Some say that Hreksongs conceive through the ear and give birth through the mouth; others say, on the contrary, that they conceive through the mouth and give birth through the ear; it is said, also, that they are skilled in healing, so that if by chance their young are killed, and their parents succeed in finding them, they can bring their offspring back to life."

Firstly, what sort of beast is this? We have a mention of ears, so it must be a beast rather than a bird, serpent, or any other type of animal (I know I've used the mention of 'nest' as an excuse to draw more birds before, but I don't think this works in this case!).

They roam around in houses? That means they either they have been domesticated, or they are sneaking around when everyone is asleep (I suppose if they were big and/or scary enough, they might be wandering around when everyone is awake too… it's their house now 😮 ). There's no mention of domestication, and I would hope that there'd be a bit more knowledge about the mating habits of domestic animals (though at this point I feel like the scribes writing these entries are probably terminally obtuse when it comes to sex…). Thus, we have the smaller, urban Hreksong sneaking around the rafters and beams of the house, trying to steal your snacks…

We also have the forest Hreksong, carrying around one of its babies by the scruff of the neck. It has large ears (to give birth out of, I suppose), and as we know this is a fearsome predator of rodents and serpents, so a body plan resembling mustelids or mongooses (not particularly closely related, just convergent evolution into the perfect mammalian body shape!).

This also ties in to what I (now) know of mustelid magic from the Lays of Marie de France…

I really wanted some more practice drawing people (and clothes, oh my goodness clothes are hard!). I'm coming to the conclusion that, to start with at least, less is more; once I'm a bit more confident with the basics, I can start filling in more of the details!

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:

Art below the cut, roughly chronological, as always.

@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.

@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.

@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.

@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:

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.