Dragons, Dogs & Amadillos?

[Linda]

I think it is safe to assume it is scales, not wool.  Bad as the VMS art is, I cannot imagine how a sheep or any other species common in Europe could have mutated into that thing.

I agree they are scales. However the animal need not actually have scales in reality if it is actually something else denoted by the scales.

In maps, we have scales, even those resembling pangolin scales in the Catalan atlas. But they generally represent rocks, or mountains.

  

Some of these even resemble some graphics in the vms, on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for instance. I think those are mountains too.
Let's go back even further and show that we had scaly rocks in the shape of the Alps in the 1320s on some maps. It is the C shape in the lower section.



Now, let's say you wanted to denote this as an animal, perhaps to to obfuscate but at the same time to confirm if one knows the reference. Perhaps Capra ibex, endemic to the Alps, historically shown jumping onto their heads from mountains. 

 

We even have some with scaly mountains and one in the same position as the vms, which happens to match the Alps themselves somewhat.



Now you have an actually wooly mammal, meant to imply the region in which it resides, with the scales which also give a hint regarding said region being rocky, along with the shape of the pose. I have more to say on it but will leave it at that for now, but will end with this thought: What is the rest of the page about if it is a pangolin or an armadillo? The hunt? Doesn't seem like it, and the vms makers know how to draw a hunter. It seems to be about water, like how cloud vapour deposits moisture on the mountain, which finds itself gathering and moving down into the ground in the valley below, in the form of springs, or filling lakes and rivers along the way to the sea. I noticed the little fly wings at what would be the armpit and did a bit of research, it would be the location of the river Talfer, a river which splits the area it is in into two like the fly wings, which area was well known to flood Bolzano and other places multiple times, recorded again as a drawing in 1541, with various taxes being levied to do things about it (create water walls) at various points in the 14th and 15th centuries. (de.wiki) Showing the Alps above a nebuly cloud band raining down on various other locations would make sense for that story and especially pointing out that particular place to show how bits of moisture can become a torrent.