The Voynich Ninja

Marco.

3.ij is the abbreviation for drachmae duae (in Latin), drome due in the dialect of the ms.?

JKP wrote:

Quote:Thew fact that Veratrum is toxic doesn't discount it as a possible ID. A very high proportion of medieval medicinal plants were toxic. In fact, you almost get the feeling that they considered toxins as a way to root out body toxins because they used them so widely. This was true even in the 19th and 20th centuries, when mercury, which is highly toxic, was used to treat Syphilis.

To the point, the legend about Tillo, which was killed (disrupt?) by a dragon or a snake, and revived with a certain herb (Agrippa of Nettesheim calls it simply Dragon-wort), reminded me Slavic (Romanian, Russian...) legends and fairy tales about dead and living waters. Dead water connects parts and heal wounds, live water returns to life. Maybe, the same analogy is with plants, as well: toxic plants - as a dead component, innocuous ones - as a life and health giving component.

H. C. Agrippa thought about similar things after the mention of that story.

Et Juba refert in Arabia herba quadam hominem revocatum ad vitam. Verum an possint talia re vera fieri vi herbarum, vel cuiusvis alterius rei naturali in hominem, in sequentibus differemus: posse autem fieri in caeteris animantibus, certum & manifestum est. Sic muscae submersae si ponantur in cineribus tepidis, reviviscunt: & apes submersae similiter vitam recuperant in succo nepetae, & anguillae defectu aquae mortuae si corpore integro existente ponantur sub fimo in aceto, & addatur de sanguine vulturis post paucos dies omnes recuperant vitam. Echeneim si quis in frusta discerpserit, & in mare projecerit, paulo post partes convenire & reviviscere aiunt. Scimus quoque pellicanum necatos pullos revocare ad vitam proprio sanguine.

(30-08-2017, 08:28 PM)Searcher Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.H. C. Agrippa thought ...

Give the reference, please

Helmut Winkler:
Just found it: the quote is from Agrippa's Occult Philosophy, Book 1, Part 2, Chapter 38.
English translation from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
"and Juba reports, that in Arabia a certain man was by a certain Hearb [herb] restored to life. But whether or no any such things can be done indeed upon man by the vertue of Hearbs [herbs], or any other naturall thing, we shall discourse in the following Chapter. Now it is certain, and manifest that such things can be done upon other animals. So if flies, that are drowned, be put into warm ashes, they revive. And Bees being drowned, do in like manner recover life in the juice of the hearb Nip [herb catnip]; and Eels being dead for want of water, if with their whole bodies they be put under mud in vineger [vinegar], and the blood of a Vultur [vulture] being put to them, will all of them in a few dayes recover life. They say that if the fish Echeneis be cut into peices [pieces], and cast into the sea, the parts will within a little time come together, and live. Also we know that the Pellican [pelican] doth restore her yong [young] to life, being killed, with her own blood. "

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I mentioned that a scorpion sometimes appear together with Plantago. 
We know that the VMS illustrator used a lizard to represent the Scorpio zodiac sign.
Trinity O.2.48 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) illustrates with a lizard a root that is supposed to look like a scorpion (radicem ... formatam in modo scorpionis).
Maybe the possibility that the "dragon" is meant to represent a scorpion is worth considering after all.

This one is licking a tree, from a bestiary. Interesting because it's in root creature position.

[attachment=1849]


Perhaps someone can understand the text: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

That's the legend of the doves and the dragon in the peridexion tree. They roost there to be safe from the dragon which hates the shade.

David, thanks for bringing up that legend. There are some wonderful drawings associated with it.

Here is one where the tongue is sticking out (but not quite touching the tree). Sometimes it touches the doves:



Harley MS 3244

I'm not sure how to read this image.. is that a dragon's head on the tree?
It's from a genre of pottery where riders are advancing towards a tree in the middle. Not much info is provided apart from: Seljuk Paired Horsemen on Ceramics, 12th to 13th centuries



Note also the slender stem of the tree combined with the large purplish "flower" on top. And the general appearance of the script in the black band.

The Turks originally saw the dragon as propitious, but absorbed a lot of other ideas about dragons when they resettled new areas (from Arabs, westerners, etc.).


In the old Assyrian beliefs, there was a dragon underground (often drawn only as a head to show it's coming up from the earth) called Mutu. The Greeks had some similar ideas, but not quite as specific as Mutu. The head on that plate reminded me of Mutu.


One thing I can't help noticing about Turkish legends, the really old ones, is that they are more like Chinese cultures than western cultures.

For example, the propitious dragon is similar to eastern cultures and even though the early Turks were pagan, their beliefs about various levels of divinity and the "sky" gods is very similar to Chinese beliefs and not very much like the western pagans, who worshiped cave beings, tree beings, nymphs of the springs, etc., things close at hand and often of the soil (Turks did this too, but with more of an emphasis of how they connected to the "upper" worlds). One can also see these legends taking on western traits as time went on (e.g., the dragon started to take on a variety of meanings).

Thunder was considered to be the roar of the sky dragon.