The Voynich Ninja

(07-01-2017, 09:33 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm with Diane on this one. The iconography of the beast is completely wrong. I also like the comparison she made. 
The trouble is that there is no reason for a 'dragon' to appear there. The image had a specific tradition and those meanings just aren't conveyed bya dragon nibbling a leaf. 
It's got to be some other animal, and we're projecting a dragon into it.

What image has a specific tradition? Are you talking about the plant? The plant is probably not mandrake.

As for projecting a dragon onto it, the "tail" (rather than two back legs) is probably what gives it a dragony look. Dragons of every possible description were popular in the middle ages. I've been calling it "dragony critter" because I don't know what it is and DON'T want to assume it's a dragon.

No one seems to like my suggestion that it might be a camel nibbling on camel grass:

  

Left: Juncus (camel hay)        Right: Cymbopogon (squinantum - camel grass)


The critter is certainly not recognizable as a specific animal in the way that the sheep, bulls, and other more naturalistic critters are drawn elsewhere in the manuscript so, either it's a bad drawing (perhaps intentionally so), or a mythical creature (with a dragon as one possibility). It doesn't look like a dog. Dogs don't have humps or manes/spines/bumps or peculiar back ends. It might be something woolly (sheep and camels are woolly when it gets cold). Or it could be St. Martha's famous turtle monster, the tarasque (which is drawn a zillion different ways), but I haven't been able to find any botanical references to this beast.

        


When I You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about this plant, I was obliged to mention a dog as a possibility (assuming it's REALLY badly drawn) because so many people assume at first glance that it's mandrake and a dog, but I strongly doubt that it's either mandrake or a dog.

Jkp - I'm referring to the beast, I'm not getting into any plant id. Dragons had specific meanings in western iconography, and none of those meanings seem to fit this page.
It could be a camel. But I don't think the beast is put here to give a clue to the plant name.

(07-01-2017, 11:16 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Jkp - I'm referring to the beast, I'm not getting into any plant id. Dragons had specific meanings in western iconography, and none of those meanings seem to fit this page.
It could be a camel. But I don't think the beast is put here to give a clue to the plant name.

The VMS leans so strongly toward what appear to be meanings (and possibly double meanings) that I'm inclined to think the beast has something to do with the plant but... I suppose it might not.

Have you got any ideas as to why it's on this page? And why it's nibbling on a leaf (assuming that's what it's doing)?

All the other plant/animal images shown in the book are hybrids. The beast is clearly an attribute of the plant. 
But this isn't a hybrid, in a unique moment for the book. It's clearly a beast, clearly interacting with the plant and also gazing at the viewer. The animal is given a bank to stand upon to show that it has nothing to do with the roots - yet the roots are still there, they are important. The beast is clearly shown sucking on a leaf (the leaf is not damaged by the way). Etc. These are all clues.
There is also the possibility that the creatures umbilical cord is attached to the plant, but this is a bit subjective I'm afraid. 
So what does this mean? 
A) nothing - the beast is a later addition. 
B) the beast and plant are linked in a symbolic symbiosis but are individual creatures, as in my borametz hypothesis. 
C) the beast and plant are linked in a functional manner - IE this plant is good for this animal.
D) the beast is there as a pun, to hint at the name of the plant.

Personally, I opt for b) (but I wouldn't bet money on it)

David, again those two snakes are integrated into the drawing but they are not part of the plant: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

But the snakes integrate into the plant, by incorporating themselves in a surreal fashion through the roots. There is a clear illustrative tradition of depicting snakes as part of plants, for both reasons b) and c) from my previous post (ie good for snakebite, mythological tradition). Our dragon isn't symbiotic in a clear way - it seems he is using the plant, not forming part of it. Here are some snake examples:


15th century plant for snakebite - Italian herbal from Trento

Scamonea from Hortus Sanitatis Minor

(And Marco Ponzi has dozen more examples on a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
Although last night I did come acrossYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. a 1440 Italian herbal which depicts a dragon and some sheep alongside plants on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and again on f38v. But note that this book is an illustrative copy made for a wealthy patron, not a day to day use book. I haven't worked out why the dragon is there yet, or if it has anything to do with the plants.

Hello David,

w.r.t. the sheep in Sloane 4016, they are there for their own right. The books shows herbs and animals, and this is "Aries" with the herb being "Aristologia rotonda". The book is organised alphabetically.

Aristologia rotonda is illustrated with an accompanying "cirtter" in all herbals I am aware of.
Some look more like a dragon, others more like a lizard. The plant is copied quite faithfully from book to book, but the animal varies a lot.

It's notable that the VMs plant with a dragon looks more like a real You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., (Green dragon, dragonroot) but... it is from North America.
           

I've spent a great deal of time looking at the VMS plants, I have some knowledge of plants, and have catalogued more than 20,000 plants in a database (a years-long project). I can recognize a fairly high percentage of plants in the old herbals without looking at labels (and the labels confirm that my IDs are correct). I can even ID some of the really weird ones because I gradually learned the iconography for historical precedents.


I have studied small details of the plants and I am pretty confident that two things were important to the person who drew them (two attributes that were not of interest to many of the previous herbal illustrators)... these are the leaf margins and the direction of the veins. In some of the naturalistic drawings (not the fanciful ones), the leaf margins have some very fine details that one would only notice if one were intimately familiar with the plant, and the veins are correct as well.

Having observed this a long time ago (2008), I took some pains over the next couple of years to confirm or deny the impression and gained quite a bit of respect for the drawings. Clearly some of the leaves, roots, and flowers have been adjusted in stylistic or mnemonic ways, but for the naturalistic ones, leaf margins and veins are important to the person who drew them.


I mention all this because plant You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has parallel veins and I don't think it's arbitrary. I think it was intended to reflect the actual morphology of the plant. If it turns out that this detail is intentional, and if the dragon-like critter has some relationship to the plant, then it might help determine one or the other (or both).

JKP - I can understand the leaf margins being important, but why veins?