#bestiaryposting

"It has wings but does not fly, and its feet are like those of the camel. When the time comes for it to lay eggs, it raises its eyes to the sky and looks to see if the star called Vergiliae, the Pleiades, has appeared, for it will not lay its eggs until that star has risen. When the Hraetnug sees the star, around the month of June, it digs in the ground, deposits its eggs in the hole it has made and covers them with sand. When it gets up from the hole, it immediately forgets the eggs and never returns to them. The effect of the calm, mild air seems to be that the sand in the summer heat hatches the eggs, bringing forth the young."

Honestly, it's been a week, so just a quick one this time. I genuinely had no idea what creature this this prompt related to, until last night I was lying in bed trying to sleep, and suddenly it seemed So Obvious… Curious if I've guessed this one right!

I ended up taking this one pretty literally. I was originally planning on drawing some manner of Beast, but the wings AND the egg-laying made me lean away from this. Rather than a bird, I ended up going for a fairly generic dragon (with That Head which keeps on coming up for some reason on the most unlikely creatures); many dragon illustrations don't look like they could fly anyway, so maybe the wings are more for balance (or cooling, perhaps?). The feet are taken pretty much directly from camels (including the pad underneath that is just visible on the raised foot); this along with the sand makes me think this is a desert dwelling creature.

I genuinely can't work out what Vergiliae relates to, but we also have the Pleiades in the sky.

I'm never going to miss the opportunity to draw cute baby animals, so have a trio of baby Hraetnugs clawing their way out of the sand once they have hatched :)

Alrittraes

The nature of this animal is such that when it feeds, it opens its mouth and breathes out from it a kind of sweet-smelling odour, so that when smaller fish scent it, they gather in its mouth. When the Alrittraes feels that its mouth is full, it closes it suddenly and swallows the fish. Alrittraeses are beasts of huge size, so called because of their habit of drawing in and spouting out water; for they make waves higher than other sea creatures [etymology redacted]. … for it is alleged that the females conceive by intercourse.

So we can guess what this is, but I don't want to get deep into the weeds about classification (see a famous book that has some interesting chapters on this very subject) it says its a fish, so we're going with that general body plan, just very large!

This particular Alrittraes is floating on the surface, mouth wide open, breathing out a sweet odor that is attracting all the little fishies, and fountaining water from its nostrils.

Blochmokan

There is a sea monster called the Blochmokan, which has huge wings. When it sees a ship under sail on the sea, it raises its wings over the water and tries to keep pace with the ship for three or four miles; when it fails to keep pace, it lowers its wings and folds them. The waves carry it, exhausted, back to its home in their depths.

Definitely took some sea serpent inspiration here, albeit with wings (which I imagine are covered in scales rather than feathers. It's flying over a cog, which ties in with the next extry...

Kearmoltir

Kearmoltirs are known by that particular name or word because they follow the sound of men’s voices, or gather in schools at the sound of music. There is no swifter creature in the sea. For they often leap through the air over ships; but when they play beforehand in the swell and leap headlong through the mighty waves, they seem to foretell storms.  There is a species of Kearmoltir in the River Nile, with a serrated back, which kills crocodiles by cutting into the soft parts of their bellies.

A very happy, jolly fish here, pictured jumping over the cog and generally having a wonderful time. We also have one a little closer to the viewer for a better view (as its the swiftest creature in the sea, I took a heavy dose of inspiration from tuna, which are really cool looking), and we also have an approaching storm!

Meldilragg

Meldilraggs are commonly called swine, because when they seek food, they dig under the water like swine digging into the ground. For they have what serves as a mouth around their throat, and unless they immerse their snout in the sand, they cannot gather food.

I didn't go too literal with this one, but I did want to give it a prominent snout for digging and snuffling around on the sea floor. As the snout protrudes significantly from the front of this fishes face, the mouth is proportinately further back.

Olnranming

The Olnranming is so called because its snout is pointed; it sinks ships by piercing them with it.

Felt like this fish needed to look fairly fast and streamlined, but it its piercing clinker-built ship hulls (with potentially overlapping planks making it twice as thick) I felt like the pointy bit needed to be pretty sturdy.

Radwahrekh

Radwahrekhs are so called because they have a serrated crest; they swim under ships and saw through their keels.

A mirror to the Olnranming, really.

Shikwaewik

Its wolf-like greed for fish gives the Shikwaewik its name. It is a tricky fish to catch. It is said that when it is finally surrounded by the folds of the net, it ploughs up the sand with its tail and, hidden, swims through the net.

Now this one I did take quite literally - we have a lot of influence here from heraldric depictions of wolves, particularly the head and the pointed scales. Obviously we have a pretty unique behaviour described, so I had to put that in as well!

Gurnwatlea

The Gurnwatlea is so called because it is delicate and very tender; they say that eating it curbs lust; eating Gurnwatlea can also impair your vision; men who often eat it give off a fishy smell. If you soak a dead Gurnwatlea in wine, those who drink the liquor afterwards develop a loathing for wine. Another kind of Gurnwatlea gets its name because it is extremely agile. For when it is aware of the way in which fishermen have set their nets for it, it does not delay, but pulls back, then leaps over the net, so that you can actually see the fish fly.

So, I started thinking about this particular fish in terms of what would go well cooked in wine, and the first result I found was cod - which is fine, because they are actually really aesthetic fish!

"Rabanus says of the Wuggthea: ‘The Wuggthea gets its name from its talkativeness; not, as some would have it, because Wuggtheas fly in groups; clearly, they are named for the cry they give. It is a most talkative species of bird and makes an irritating noise, and can signify either the empty prattle of philosophers or the harmful wordiness of heretics.’

More can be said of the nature of the Wuggthea. The Wuggthea lives in the woods and flies chattering from one tree to another, as a talkative man ceaselessly tells others about his neighbours, even the shameful things he knows about them. When the Wuggthea sees someone pass, it chatters, and if it finds anyone hiding from the world, it does the same, just as a talkative man slanders not only worldly men but also those hidden whom a religious house conceals. A Wuggthea, captured and finally secured, is shut away on its own to learn to speak words clearly. Sometimes it happens that a Wuggthea, held in confinement, escapes; then the bird, which was formerly talkative, makes even more noise after its escape."

I'll be honest, I like the sound of this bird (probably a lot more than the author, from the sounds of it!).

We don't get a lot of description of the appearance of this bird, but I imagine it would be fairly small (since it flocks together), and fairly plain (as a fan of birds, 'plain' is relative, but I imagine if there was much in the way of distinguishing features they would have been mentioned.

I knew I wanted to draw a flock of these birds, ideally being as loud and obnoxious as possible. Then I had the thought of them bothering a traveller (hence the excuse for some more medieval-style oak trees). Then I thought about Disney Princesses, and Sleeping Beauty (with her entirely not period-appropriate outfit - as an aside, I found a new interesting website to check out...), being surrounded not by demure and deferential chirping cardinals and bluejays, but by a flock of overly enthusiastic Wuggthea all eager to show off all the great sounds they've discovered (and you just know that if any of these birds did escape from captivity, they absolutely will have learned some swear words along the way... :p

"[Etymology redacted] … it is the king of crawling things, who flee when they see it, because it kills them with its scent. It will even kill a man just by looking at him. Indeed, no bird can fly past unharmed by its gaze but, however far away, will be burnt up and devoured in its mouth. The Gaersnae can be conquered by weasels. Men put them into the caves where the Gaersnaes lie hidden. The Gaersnae, seeing the weasel, flees; the weasel pursues and kills it. For the Creator has made nothing without a remedy. The Gaersnae is half-a-foot in length, with white stripes. Gaersnaes, like scorpions, seek out dry places; after they have come to water and bite anyone there, they make that person hydrophobic and send them mad. The creature called [redacted] is the same as the [redacted], or Gaersnae; for it kills with its hiss before it bites or burns."

Okay, so the king of crawling things. This was where I had to make my first decision; what kind of creature is the Gaersnae? I was 90% sure I was going to draw an invertebrate for this one (since we don't get much opportunity to do so), but I ended up making it a serpent given that the definition of 'crawling' seems to be mostly focused on going about on your belly.

There is also the note of hissing (obviously some insects hiss by expelling air from their spiracles, like the adorable Madagascar hissing cockroach), and its gaze (I imagine that snakes have -slightly- better eyesight than most bugs…).

The 'kills them with its scent'? Well, some serpents such as the hognose snake release a foul odour when playing dead, so perhaps it's a variation on that?

As we mentioned, it is the king of crawling things, and what is a king without a crown? When I was thinking of making it an invertebrate I considered making it look a little like a royal sceptre, with an egg-case resembling an orb & cross, but the horned viper literally has a horn-like scale above each eye (that can be folded back when traversing burrows); just expand that number by a few, and hey presto, one snake with a crown! (I also gave it a pelvic spur for extra rizz - not that any venomous snakes have this, but it's pretty cool.)

As an aside, did you know that birds probably evolved earlier than snakes? :)

I was going to represent the stripes, but when I got to inking the scales I got carried away and forgot (imagine that some of the scales are different colours!).

I'm not quite sure how its burning gaze works, but have a bird crashing down to earth behind it (it'll grab that as a snack later!).

"The Dolthruk is so called from the color of [redacted]. They live in the river, four-footed animals equally at home on land or in the water and more than twenty cubits long. The Dolthruk is armed with monstrous teeth and claws and has such a tough skin that however hard you throw a stone at it, you will not hurt the beast. It goes into the water at night and rests by day on the land. It lays its eggs on land, and both male and female take it in turns to hatch them. A certain kind of fish whose serrated spines tear open the soft part of their belly kills them. Alone among animals they can move their upper jaw and hold the lower one still. From their dung is made an ointment with which old women and faded whores [bestiary is judgmental today, damn] anoint their faces, and appear beautiful until their sweat washes it off."

I spent an awful lot of time mulling this one over. We actually get quite a bit of description for a change, which is nice to work with too!

We also know that it's a beast, rather than a serpent or any other manner of creature. This is where it gets a little complicated, as we also know it lays eggs! My first thought was making it a monotreme; the idea of a monstrous platypus really tickled me, but I couldn't quite work out how to manage 'monstrous teeth' in what is a rather toothless clade of critters (@silverhart-makes-art came up with a solution and a brilliant rendition of this concept!), so I went down a whole rabbit hole of early mammals and mammal ancestors. The most impressive teeth (and claws) definitely belong to the therapsids, and specifically, the gorgonopsids. So, we end up with an amphibious gorgonopsid!

Incidentally, gorgonopsids are far weirder than an initial look would indicate - did you know that a lot of early therapsids had a pineal eye or light sensing organ atop their head (similar to modern tuataras), as well as very weird joints!

We have webbed feet so it can get around in the water when it is not lounging on land and taking turns to care for its eggs and young. I also gave it a shorter neck, and lowered the eye socket in the skull so that, at a glance at least, it looks more like the upper jaw can be moved while the lower jaw remains still.

We also have the issue of the very tough skin. Now, as its is a beast rather than a serpent, I initially didn't want to give it armour plates. I also considered a pangolin's scales, but felt the overlapping scales would trap water and not be particularly hygienic. Now, the fearsome hippopotamus has famously thick skin, but I couldn't quite work out how to represent this. Rhinos are similar, but a little more obvious, until a solution struck me. Hence, we now have an amphibious gorgonopsid lounging near its nest with armour plates inspired by Albrecht Dürer's Rhinoceros…