Exerpts from The Aberdeen Bestiary

http://www.abdn.ac.u...ry/bestiary.hti

An illuminated manuscript from the 13th century, it contains fascinating insight into the lesser known behaviours of certain beasts, and also how jews and hyenas are basically the same thing.

The third characteristic of the lion is that when a lioness gives birth to her cubs, she produces them dead and watches over them for three days, until their father comes on the third day and breathes into their faces and restores them to life. Thus the Almighty Father awakened our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day; as Jacob says: 'He will fall asleep as a lion, and as a lion's whelp he will be revived' (see Genesis, 49:9).

Of the beaver
There is an animal called the beaver, which is extremely gentle; its testicles are are highly suitable for medicine. Physiologus says of it that, when it knows that a hunter is pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them in the hunter's face and, taking flight, escapes.

Share and discuss your favourite passages

 

Ok this one is funny:

"Among bears the time of gestation is accelerated. Indeed, the thirtieth day sees the womb free of the cub. As a result of this rapid fertility, the cubs are created without form. The females produce tiny lumps of flesh, white in colour, with no eyes."

 

13th century

beaver

waaaaat
This books is talking about a creature from across the Atlantic Ocean, and the most interesting thing it can mention is its balls?

The lion fears the cock, especially the white one.

lol

 

Actually I like some of the texts, and are very nice:

Of the raven
In his book of Etymologies, Isidore says that the raven picks out the eyes in corpses first, as the Devil destroys the capacity for judgement in carnal men, and proceeds to extract the brain through the eye. The raven extracts the brain through the eye, as the Devil, when it has destroyed our capacity for judgement, destroys our mental faculties.
Again, the raven can be taken to mean a sinner, since it is clad, so to speak, with the dark plumage of sin. There are some sinners who despair of God's mercy. Others pray that they may be helped to find it by the prayers of the pious.
Of the second sort, it is said: 'The ravens fed Elijah' (see 1 Kings, 17:6). By 'ravens' we are meant to understand the sinners who support the religious from their own resources. Elijah signifies those who live hidden in the habit and house of a religious order.
The former sinners who despair, long for worldly things and look outwards when they should look inwards. Of these the scripture says: 'The raven did not return to the ark' (see Genesis, 8:7); perhaps because it was caught up and perished in the flood, or perhaps because it found corpses and settled on them. In the same way, the sinner who gratifies himself outwardly with carnal desires, like the raven that did not return to the ark, is held back by external preoccupations.
But the raven can also be interpreted in a good sense, as a learned preacher. On this subject, it says in the book of the blessed Job: 'Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat' (38:41).
The raven, as the blessed Gregory says, is the learned teacher who cries out in a loud voice, carrying the memory of his sins like blackness around him. He produces disciples in the faith, but perhaps they cannot yet address their own weakness, perhaps they shun the memory of their former sins. As a result they do not show the blackness of humility, which they ought to adopt against worldly glory. They open their mouth as if for food when they seek instruction in the mysteries of religion. But their teacher imparts the nourishment of sublime preaching only to the extent that he sees they have repented fittingly of their past sins.

 

The entire "birds" section wasn't very interesting imo
Weasels, though

Some say that weasels conceive through the ear and give birth through the mouth; others say, on the contrary, that they conceive through the mouth and give birth through the ear;

 

well which one is it?

 

Of the bonnacon In Asia an animal is found which men call bonnacon. It has the head of a bull, and thereafter its whole body is of the size of a bull's with the maned neck of a horse. Its horns are convoluted, curling back on themselves in such a way that if anyone comes up against it, he is not harmed. But the protection which its forehead denies this monster is furnished by its bowels. For when it turns to flee, it discharges fumes from the excrement of its belly over a distance of three acres, the heat of which sets fire to anything it touches. In this way, it drives off its pursuers with its harmful excrement.

It's funny because poop

 

What the fuck is a bonnacon?
As an asian I have never heard of such thing in my life.

EDIT: Oh wait it's an extinct race of forest buffalo thing I think.

 

because panthers totally exist too, right?