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]:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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).
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]:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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).