Dragons, Dogs & Amadillos?

[Koen G]

R. Sale, I was about to focus on the line. I came across a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on a blog aptly called "some Voynich ideas", where the author shows quite a number of these wavy lines from all around the Voynich Manuscript. In his examples, I noticed something peculiar. The lines like the one interpreted here as a "nebuly line", usually have a slight slant to them; the 'bulbs' lean a bit to one side. Why is this? Was the author unable to draw decent wavy lines? 

Well, the opposite is true. Have a look at the leaves on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant. Look at those lines. A clean, perfect, straight, symmetrical wavy line if I've ever seen one. So he was able to draw this kind of line well in plants, where one would expect more organic irregularity. Given this information, I would assume that the slant in the other lines is intentional. But why?

That reminded me of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Diane, in which she discusses Athena's aegis (protective cloak) in relation to this pattern. So I won't be saying anything new here, just showing it in a different way. It is clear that these lines in the VM are not Athena's cloak. They lack the snakes and they lack Athena. But it does seem clear to me that this pattern was recognized by those familiar with classical art, and that it may have been evoked in the VM. The symbolism would then be that of a (divine) protective barrier or something similar. I've gathered some examples from different Greek Athena representations below:



Below, I compare the wavy lines from four images, rotated and scaled where necessary to allow for easier comparison. 
1) example of aegis
2) line from f80v
3) plant edge from f50r
4) nebuly line from image posted by Marco



Finally, a side remark, which I'm sure has been noticed before. Another common pattern from Athena's aegis should ring a bell as well: