I have a few more Physiologus posts that I’m going to publish now, but first an answer key to Monday’s round of Name That Beast* (with links to bestiary entries)
If a man wants to start an argument at a dinner party, he can do so by dropping a stone that a dog has gnawed into the wine. This will whip his guests into a fighting frenzy.
— At a party you’re worried is going too well? Claudius Aelianus has your back. (via historieofbeafts)
Heart ripped out of a live mouse and tied to the left arm
Fat from the ‘secret’ parts of a lion, placed in ivory
Worm removed from a mule’s womb and tied to any part of the body
Mule’s womb fried and eaten without the woman’s knowledge**
Mule stones wrapped in mule skin and tied to the body
Harts-tongue and mule spleen tied to the body on a moonless night**
Mule ears, carried
Mule urine, drunk
Left stone of a weasel tied in mule skin and left in a drink to steep
Horse sweat soaked into wool and worn in the underwear**
Spitting 3 times in a frog’s mouth (this lasts a year)
Salamander heart strapped to the thigh (this seems more like a deterrent than a contraceptive. like a really disgusting chastity belt)
** permanent results
*these were unlikely to be in common use, since herbal remedies were far easier to obtain and far less unpleasant. also, every single one of Topsell’s sources was a man, so. that explains some things?
Medieval cats are surprisingly like modern cats. Not poisonous, not made of fire, only plotting murder in a casual, passive way. For once the weirdness was all the Renaissance. Here is Bartholomaeus Anglicus describing an average 14th century cat:
led by a straw, and playeth therewith
maketh a ruthful noise and ghastful, when one proffereth to fight with another
unneth is hurt when he is thrown down off an high place*
a right heavy beast in age and full sleepy
*this translation was edited in the 1800s, which is the only possible excuse for ‘unneth’
Here is a cat helping a nun. Yes, it has a face like a tiny skull, but some cats do.
Sometimes you visit your local healthcare provider and aren’t sure if the medical professional assisting you is a doctor or a monkey. Asking would be rude, but fortunately there are some easy ways to tell the two apart!
Did they go to school? Monkeys.
Have you seen them studying flasks? Also monkeys.
Do they treat patients? Monkeys.
In fact, most standard healthcare procedures are carried out by monkeys. But if you do encounter a doctor you can recognize them by these signs:
All of their prescriptions are for dead animals. Do you eat the animal? Do you tie it to your body? Bathe in its blood? Rub it gently on the wound? For proper health it’s best to do all four.
They smell like The Body Shop collided with a chemical processing plant and will not enter any room that hasn’t been adequately perfumed.
Constantly reminding you disease is a punishment from God.
Insist that a diet of fish in sugar will make you less melancholy and arsenic has many proven health benefits.
Will not take patients if the weather is foggy or too warm.
Uncomfortable around fire.
Very interested in your blood. Do you have too much of it? Is it causing problems? You should try having less blood. They will help you have less blood.
sansasquatch asked: I remember reading in several medieval works about ridiculous creatures called "unipeds." I never saw an illustration of one, but they were described to be a shiny, human-like being with one large foot, and they would sit with this foot flopped over their heads for shade. I specifically remember mentions of them in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville as well as in The Vinland Saga, which are two very different works. Ever seen any illustrations of those things?
I actually haven’t, which is surprising because you’d think they’d fit right in with the grotesques that were so popular in manuscripts. Humanoids and beasts don’t really show up in the same places, though, so I might have just missed them. I’ll keep an eye open in the future.
they’re also called monopods or sciapods and there are plenty of examples on wikimedia so i pulled some up for ya
from the nuremberg chronicle, 1493:
from the heures à l'usage des antonins, 15th century:
Very unfair. The elephant is tiny and looking in completely the wrong direction. This dragon should feel bad about its choices.
Disqualified for illegal tail spike.
The unfairness here is not that it’s 2 against 1, it’s that the elephants are camping out in a safe zone because they know dragons can’t touch water. Not technically against the rules, but not very sportsmanlike.
These dragons have gone for the ambush predator approach and failed miserably, especially the first one. Look at their feet dangling. Not unfair, but not effective either.
Basilisk: King of the snakes. All other snakes flee before it, because its odor is deadly to them. Kills humans by looking at them. 6 inches long, spotted, severely hydrophobic. “No flying bird may pass unharmed by the basilisk’s face, but however distant it may be it is burnt up and devoured by this animal’s mouth.”
Sibilus: Similar to the basilisk. Kills by means of hissing.
Dragon: Largest of the snakes. Lurks around paths where elephants are accustomed to walk and wraps around their legs. Born in Ethiopia and India “in the fiery intensity of perpetual heat.”
Amphisbæna: Has two heads, one on either end of its body.
Prester Asp: Has a mouth that is perpetually open and steaming.
Dipsas: So small its bite cannot be felt, but anyone bitten dies of thirst.
Haemorrhois: “Whoever has been bitten by it exudes blood, with the effect that as the veins dissolve it draws out through the blood whatever life there is.”
Seps: Corrosive. Its venom dissolves bones as well as the rest of the body.
Cerastes: Uses its 4 horns to lure prey. The most flexible snake.
Scytale: The pattern of its scales is hypnotic. This is necessary because it moves too slowly to catch unmesmerized prey.
Chelydros: Amphibious. Makes the earth on which it moves smoke, but can only travel in a straight line “for if it turns when it moves, it immediately makes a sharp noise.”
Natrix: Deliberately contaminates water by stirring in its poison.
Cenchris: A snake that cannot bend.
Parias: A snake that always travels on its tail.
Jaculus: A flying snake. Launches itself from treetops like a javelin.
Siren: “In Arabia there as snakes with wings, called sirens; they move faster than horses, but they are also said to fly.”
Salpuga: “The salpuga is a snake that is invisible.”
[All facts from Book XII Section IV of the Etymologies, 2006 Cambridge translation]
I was working an overnight shift at my job in Reynosa, Mexico, where I was cutting metal for parts used in assembling flatscreen televisions. I was working in my usual area, and the boss was pressuring us.
“I want you to work faster, because we need the material urgently,” he said.
I was moved to Machine 19, which can rip and cut metal and takes two hands to operate. It is heavy, weighing at least one ton, maybe two, and no one liked to work on it because it was too difficult. They always seemed to assign it to me.
I started work at 11pm. Around 2 or 2:30am, I was positioning metal inside Machine 19. My hands were actually inside the machine, because I had to push the metal in until it clicked into place.
That’s when the machine fell on top of them.
I screamed. Everyone around me was crying and yelling. They stopped the assembly line on the female side of the room, but the men were told to keep working.
Meanwhile, I was stuck. No one could lift the machine off my hands. They remained trapped for 10 minutes, crushed under the machine.
Finally, a few fellow employees created a makeshift jack to lift the machine up just enough for me to pull my hands out. I wasn’t bleeding very much, because the machine actually sealed the ends of my arms and forged them to the piece of metal. They took me to the hospital with the piece attached to my hands. The doctors were surprised when I showed up like that. I remember saying, ‘Take the piece off. Take it off.’ But they didn’t want to.”
My hands were flattened like tortillas, mangled, and they both had to be amputated. I lost my right hand up to my wrist and my left a little higher. I didn’t know how I’d ever work again.
Immediately, I started to worry about my children. I have six children at home, who were between the ages of 9 and 17 during the accident, and I am both mother and father to them. How would I take care of them now?
Working six days a week, I made 5,200 pesos a month ($400). Without my hands, I knew I wouldn’t even be able to make that much.
After five days in the hospital, I checked myself out. But I didn’t go home first. I went directly to the factory where I worked for HD Electronics. I asked to see the manager. He offered me 50,000 pesos ($3,800).
“I’ve lost both my hands,” I said. “How will my family survive on 50,000 pesos?”
“That’s our offer,” he said. “Stop making such a big scandal about it and take it.” I eventually got about $14,400 in settlement money under Mexican labor law, an amount equal to 75% of two years’ wages for each hand. But I knew I had to do better for my family. So I looked across the border, to Texas, where my former employer is based.
I found a lawyer with a nice office in a good part of town. I was sure he would help me. Instead, he said, “Go up to the international bridge and put a cup out and people will help you.”
I was devastated.
That’s when I decided to tell my story on television. That led me to Ed Krueger, a retired minister who vowed to find me the right lawyer. That lawyer was Scott Hendler at the law firm Hendler Lyons Flores, in Austin, Texas. Even though I could not pay, he helped me file a lawsuit against LG Electronics, which contracted with the factory where I worked. Finally, about 18 months after the accident, I had hope.
Then the judge in my case threw out the lawsuit on a technicality, saying LG had not been properly notified. I wasn’t even given a chance to respond.
It’s been four years since I lost my hands. I have trouble paying my mortgage, and I wonder: Was that first lawyer right? Will I end up on a bridge, holding a cup out in front of me?
I constantly wish that someone with a compassionate heart could help me get some prosthetic hands that are flexible, so I could actually do something. Right now, I can’t do much. I can do smaller things, and move some things around, but I can’t do anything for myself. I can’t even take a shower. My family is surviving on a small disability benefit from the government, the kindness of friends and because my oldest daughter is now working instead of pursuing her education.
I’ve worked in factories most of my life. I know I am not the first person to be injured. But more needs to be done to help the workers who are making the products that so many Americans buy. We don’t ask for even a tiny share of the billions these companies make. We are just asking for enough to take care of our families and, when we are hurt, to take care of ourselves, too.
I’m honored that I’ve been asked by Public Justice, a wonderful legal organization fighting on behalf of workers like me, to share my story. And I’m humbled that they’ve selected me to receive their Illuminating Injustice Award. That’s just what I hope to do: shine a light on the stories of workers, like me, so that the people who buy the products we make can understand a little about our lives, too.
I hope someone, somewhere, will hear or read my story and help prevent this from happening again. Because, while my hands are gone, the injustice for so many remains.
![historieofbeafts:
“Cool Shepherd Checklist
-very large
-levitating music friend
-tiny worrying sheep
-staff coming out of armpit
-colourful glove with 2 fingers only
-sick dance moves
[British Library, Additional MS 42130, Folio 87v]
”](https://64.media.tumblr.com/350b38396e1cebf169ebd9238e98acb0/tumblr_nox3mysxsp1uszdr6o1_500.jpg)
