The Voynich Ninja

The variety of fish and fish-like beings can be seen in Konrad von Megenberg's "Buch der Natur".



Cod. Pal. germ. 311, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Picture description ( university of Heidelberg ):

Full-page, title illustration ("von den fischen", fol. 169r), framed with a red brush line: Eight fish, including an eel, are spread across the surface in the manner of a panel, covered with blue wave lines applied with a brush. Three of them are shown in atypical physiognomy: two with a dog's head, one with a pig's snout and spines.

Edit: On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. you can see a "fish" with a dog's snout and hooves.

Here is my translation of the Karabo paragraph:

Karabo is a monster of the great sea, which is called Gabari. As Aristotle says, these monsters fight violently against each other, as rams, providing themselves of a multitude of allies on the opposing[?] sides. They are frequently seen walking like herds, dividing to move war against each other. Indeed there are four causes of war in animals. The first cause is natural pride, which is predominant in all animals. The second cause for which they fight is food, the third mating, the fourth offspring. Indeed, for offspring different kinds of animals fight each other, like chickens with birds of prey and geese with crows. Karabo is made filthy by its food: it lives on manure and mud, and it is also a large animal. And when its belly is cut open, much mud is found inside it. Karabo has a large tail, so that, when it fights, it can more easily turn itself.

Thanks, Marco. So they eat mud, that's why it's depicted that way, surprisingly close to the text.

It seems clear in all these depictions that the 13th century illustrators (and later copyists) had often lost the connection to whatever real beast may have been at the origin of these descriptions. They did their best to come up with something based on the text.

bi3, I can't remember if I mentioned the fish in Buch de Natur in one of my blogs in relation to the VMS zodiac figures (I'm fairly sure I did), but notice that the fish in the upper-right of the pic you posted has all-over scales, a long nose, and double-dorsal fins (the basic "ingredients" of the VMS Pisces if one takes the drawing literally).

One of the things I discovered when I was looking at animal drawings is that quite a few of the creatures that look strange are a little less strange if one reads descriptions.

Many of these creatures, I'm pretty sure, are based on real animals/fish. For example, after seeing one particularly odd animal drawn in several of the books (and after reading some descriptions), I suddenly realized that it was probably a hyena and that the drawing didn't match a hyena very well, but DID match a written description of a hyena called by another name (sometimes the names came from the east).

So...  you get a sea creature that is unfamiliar to people in the north, for example, and it gets a split tail even if it's a mammal (or has a different kind of tail).


The drawings of castorum make it pretty clear that most illustrators had never seen a beaver. The drawings are sometimes deer-like, dog-like, rat-like, occasionally beaver-like but not in a very literal way, and sometimes fish-like. In fact, some of them are so weird that even the VMS "pangolin" could be a beaver (castorum was usually depicted biting off its own testicles, which could account for the curled-up posture, and the tail and scales could mean "water creature").

Edit [addition]:

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Even the cloudband might possibly be explained by castorum/castoreum. The castorum/beaver was often included in herbal manuscripts because the castorum from the testicles was used as a medicinal ingredient... the reason the beaver bites off its own testicles is to save its life. If it voluntarily gives up its testicles and scampers off, it doesn't have to die (go to heaven... cloudband).

I was wondering if anyone can see, and perhaps explain:

1. The two little eye shapes at the top of the line that goes up between the neck and the foreleg. 
2. The darkness of the line near the hind foot (mid inner curve) and the little y at the top of it and the adjacent curves.
3. The s shape to the left of the dark curve and the single long curve that follows through the scales to the eye shapes.
4. The multi curve above the one on the back end of the foreleg that includes a curve in the other direction.
5. That this curve in 4 ends up with a space at the top where the curve stops, leaving a hole or void at the very top.
6. The little line and circle/dot below and right of the backward curve in 5, and the smaller circle to the right of that.
7. The dots below and to the left of the void in the top of the back, and the second void two curves before the tail.
8. The s line of the tail and the dot it points to with another dot above, and the tail bifurcation with a longer far side.
9. The darkness of the hindleg curves meeting almost at a point, then smaller curves spreading out from there.
10. The darkness and skinniness of the face and how it seems to be drawn on top of a couple of the curved scales.
11. The blue painted inverted v, second last occurrence among the blue c's within the the nebuly lines
12. That the nebuly lines turn the left corner and continue, but end at the right corner, with rain bunching up at that end.

The lion from Bodley MS 764, a fairly standard bestiary. 

Quote:Three attributes of the lion: A sick lion cures itself by eating an ape; it will not attack a prostrate man and allows captive men to depart; it is afraid of the sight of the white cock.

From this image we learn that lions can be partially covered in scales (top) and that they curl up like a pangolin when threatened.

Now you've got me seeing scaly lions (and lion-like creatures) all over the Web, Koen...

From The Met, c. 1425 (Basel, Switzerland):

Hello! That's my old school tie.

Just a note that in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the creature in the pool at bottom far right has an extremely arched back like the pose of the pangolin.
And for R.Sale the creature below that is in a heraldic 'rampant' pose.
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