[split] f25v little dragon parallels

[Koen G]

Okay, but does that rule out the possibility that someone managed to somehow see and draw an actual seahorse?  (Obviously I think the VMS is mostly derived from older and foreign sources anyway and should not be expected to follow the same conventions as other medieval books.)

That's always an option. When I wrote about the octopus, squid, jellyfish... I also assumed a first hand witness as the originator of the images. Octopus are incredibly hard to find in medieval manuscripts, while they were abundant earlier.



The same goes for the elephant leaf, by the way.

The problem with the seahorse, however, is twofold:
- There is a strong "late" influence, evident from the dragon parallels. (When I say "late" I mean Byzantine period onward).
- I have not been able to find and decent 15th century or earlier depiction of a sea horse anywhere apart from in the Americas so far. In Antiquity it was also the literal sea-horse shown by VViews.

A purely eye witness based account is of course possible, but it's always more convincing if some parallels can be found..