Women’s Anatomy

[Linda]

Why are there wolkenbands around the nymph legs?

Why did they use blue to colour the parts?

What are the dangly things and why are there 3?

Why not show the other parts of the system?

I would be interested in any answers you might offer to these questions.

An allegoric-folkloric interpretation makes much more sense in the context of water flow that we see on many connected folios. Cherry-picking ovaries and Fallopian tubes out of our knowledge of anatomy, as tempting as it is (everyone had the same idea) does not go well with the standard symbol of air (wolkenband/cloudband). The Greeks populated rivers with nymphs, Slavic folklore had spirits of the air, vilas, and there were many local variation of folklore that made sense out of mysterious natural phenomena with the intervention of magical beings. Which particular medieval folklore this comes from is unclear, because only a few bits survived in written form. Writing down forbidden folk tales may be a good reason for using cryptography. For example in the 9th century bishop of Lyon Agobard wrote a scathing rebuttal to folk beliefs about hail and thunder "De grandine et tonitruis". If he had not written this book we would not even know about them. Paracelsus wrote, however briefly, about sylphs, elemental beings.

I tend to agree with your thoughts on cherry picking. The rest of the quire should be about similar issues, but i don't see it that way. I keep a little section of mind open for it though, simply because there are links to body part zodiacs and maps that may lend further depth, if indeed such things are included here.

In terms of my own theory, i think Kassandra is involved both geographically and allegorically in this diagram. Her story links the history of the world with mythology, and in fact leads to a history of history, of mythology, and of knowledge, which links up with Plato's allegories regarding truth, which connects back to Cassandra again, in terms of the truth not being believed. I see connections with quire 14 with regard to this as well.