Stork - Tumblr Posts
A Vulcan named Stork works at the Terran adoption agency. Parents always request that he be the one to deliver their child to them.
Caliph the Stork (2017)
Caliph the stork (2016)
Caliph Stork (Pastel) 2019
One of my favorite character stork wish there were more fanfics and art
Favorite otp for this character stork x finn or stork x repton
He is a precious Doom boy and I love him
Somehow, I had not twigged at all that this was referencing storks, but it seems so obvious from the description now it's been revealed!
And yes, the Crow Time comics are honestly delightful, and you should check them out if you haven's already!
Bestiaryposting Results: Blisheag
We've got another bird this week, but it looks like people are having fun with it, so let's see what came out of it.
As usual, if you're not sure what this is about, you can see previous material at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting and follow stuff as it's posted at the tag maniculum bestiaryposting.
The entry our artists are working from this week can be seen here:
Roughly chronological order under the cut, &c. &c., you know how this works.
@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) notes that the translation choosing to say "bill" instead of "beak" makes them think of ducks, and furthermore how that seems a bit odd that we have these two very similar terms, acknowledge that some birds have beaks and some have bills, and then don't really think about it. That's a pretty interesting point -- I'm tempted to take some time to look up whether there is a defined difference, but I have a post to write and other Tasks waiting in the wings, so please, if you know what that's about, let us know. The line that the Blisheag is an enemy to snakes naturally brought the secretary bird to mind, so here we see it trampling a snake with its talons. (Some of our other artists also made the connection to secretary birds and their practice of stomping snakes -- it's interesting to me that this is apparently a part of Tumblr's collective consciousness.) Also, the coloration is based on the American black duck, which Silverhart describes as "quite a handsome duck", and I have to say the color pattern is pretty nice.
@sweetlyfez (link to post here) has also gone for large talons for stomping snakes, and in the absence of any specific physical details, decided to have some fun with it. I like the choice to give it a turkey-like body and tail combined with a long neck like a flamingo. Sweetlyfez also included the detail in the entry that the Blisheag loses its feathers while diligently incubating its nest, giving it a bald neck and head. I think the effect is kind of charming -- it kind of evokes a flamingo, but since that's bald skin rather than pink feathers, it would probably look closer to a vulture in person.
@cheapsweets (link to post here) has given us a whole group (they helpfully inform us that the collective noun is a "lance") of Blisheags attentively listening to a crow who is perched on a stump. I really like this interpretation of them following crows as guides -- like it's not just an instinctive behavior but they're actively in collaboration with the crows somehow and take verbal direction from them. Something really clever here that's easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking for -- which is why you should make a practice of reading Cheapsweets's linked posts, as they tend to include detailed explanations -- is how they've interpreted the details that describe the Blisheags making creaking & clashing noises and following the crows like an army. Look at those varied head shapes on the different Blisheag subspecies: they're patterned after different styles of knights' helmets. Also, I'd like to thank Cheapsweets for providing their own alt text, and acknowledge that I of course noticed the Stylized Trees.
@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has as usual done some delightful medieval stylization in this week's art. (And provided their own alt text, thank you.) Something I think is really clever here is how she's interpreted "enemies of snakes" as combined with "fly across the sea" -- obviously, when they're migrating, they have to deal with being menaced by sea serpents. Brilliant. As for the actual birds, we see them following crows of course, and apparently in the absence of physical description, Coolest-capybara decided to pattern them after a depiction of a bird in an old church window; if you want to see the window, you should check out the linked post. It's a good bird design, I think.
@pomrania (link to post here) also thought "secretary bird" and decided to run with it. They mention going a bit Seussian in design, and I think it really works. (Also apparently the crow is patterned after the "Crow Time" comics, which Cheapsweets also namechecked, so I suppose I should go look at those at some point.) Aside from the delightfully whimsical look of the bird in general, I think the really clever part of the design is those little round bumps on the end of its beak. They also noted the description of the Blisheag making noise by clashing its bill, and decided to give it a bill that's adapted to making noise -- they describe it as a "roseate spoonbill crossed with a tambourine". I love it.
@strixcattus (link to post here) notes the lack of specific detail but has drawn this ibis-esque bird with a very good curved beak. The gold here is in the description Strixcattus provides to remedy the "lack of detail" problem, which includes more on the nesting practices alluded to in the entry and an explanation of how it hunts snakes -- since, of course, it is the enemy of snakes, as we know. Again, you need to go read all of the worldbuilding naturalist posts Strixcattus has done for this exercise; they're delightful and very well thought out. Also, I think this drawing is the closest to the real bird, so let's go ahead and transition to...
... the Aberdeen Bestiary version. (Note: this time around I straight-up forgot what bird this was supposed to be when I sat down to do this post, but luckily I made a spreadsheet back when I started this that I was able to reference.)
Yep, those are definitely storks. Pretty recognizable depiction, I'd say. Frog looks oddly happy with being caught here.
The migration habits of storks are actually something that comes up in other medieval texts. Pretty sure they're just guessing with "Asia" here; medieval Europeans didn't really know where storks went. The version I like best is in the tradition that includes the Old English Wonders of the East, wherein we are informed that storks are only birds when they summer in Europe -- when they're back home for the winter, they take humanoid form. Really. The text in the Wonders of the East is as follows (translation mine):
There are men born who are 15 feet tall, & they have white bodies & two noses on one head. Their knees are very red, their noses long, and their hair black. When they wish to give birth, they travel on ships to India, and there bring their kin into the world.
Doesn't sound like it's talking about storks? There's a reason for that. The Wonders of the East is actually a great example of Manuscript Telephone. Ann Elizabeth Knock, in her dissertation "Wonders of the East: a synoptic edition of the Letter of Pharasmanes and the Old English and Old Picard translations" (which you can get a PDF version of at this link here), gives us the following view of the original version:
Men are born there with long legs. They are very tall, 12 or 15 feet. They [or, in some versions, just their arms] are white. Their faces are divided. They have red feet. The head is round; they have long noses and black shoulders. At a certain time, they transform into birds. As birds, they breed in [an area familiar to the reader of the Letter]; you call them storks.
The Wonders of the East lost the stork aspect in transmission -- the next entry in the Wonders starts with "There is a land in Gaul called Ciconia", which is the end of the above version being accidentally attached to the next bit and reinterpreted. Ciconia is Latin for "stork", and the version the scribe was copying from probably named Gaul as the area where they went to breed.
(Similarly, traveling on ships in the Wonders of the East is probably a confusion of navis 'ship' and avis 'bird'.)
For more on the Wonders of the East, we did a three-part episode on it back in March 2021, and I later wrote up a summary of the differences between the text we used and Knock's reconstructions at this link here. (Very much summarized, Knock's work is lengthy & detailed & a surprisingly good read for an absolute doorstopper of a dissertation.)
Retro futurism
This is the cutest thing I've read in a while.
A Vulcan named Stork works at the Terran adoption agency. Parents always request that he be the one to deliver their child to them.