#hretchngin

@pomrania (link to post here) has us off on a weird start with their interpretation of the Fatrihrukh. I don't have any particular nostalgia for rage-face comics (I was online during that era, just not in circles where they were common), but honestly this made me smile. Also I like imagining some fisherman on a dock, still sitting in a normal pose and holding his fishing rod, just full-throat screaming at the sky, apparently apropos of nothing in particular. This is a fun one, is what I'm saying.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has an uncanny ability to make me think, "sure, that looks like an animal that could be real" even when they're drawing something like Fish With Tentacles, which I am 99% sure is not a thing. Though if fish did have tentacles, they would look like that. This is of course also the Fatrihrukh; apparently people like that one.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has done the whole set. A lot of these turned out really well -- I think the Ormlalaehr is stealing the show here, but the Bursgaenga is pretty darn cute. The linked post has details on each of them, which I recommend checking out. (Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@wendievergreen (link to post here) continues to impress with their delightful art style. Love the little space-invader Magtlegyegs, and the Lungyoggeas are just... wild. Extremely cool looking. (Also, thank you for providing alt text.)

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) joins the broad consensus that if you're only drawing one of these, it's the Fatrihrukh. I love the (medieval-art-appropriate) choice to give it human-like parts since the entry doesn't say otherwise. The colors are also really pretty; I like the effect on the background.

Okay. Aberdeen Bestiary. No illustrations for this one -- this whole section is just blocks of text.

Ahrmegyaeb

The wording is ambiguous as to whether whales and dolphins also do this -- but the creature in question is the seal. I have no idea how this works; either baby seals are way smaller than I think or I have completely the wrong idea about how seal mouths look.

Bursgaenga

This one is of course the scarus or escarius, which does not exist. Bestiary.ca notes that Scarus is a genus of parrotfish in modern taxonomy, and that the Rackham translation of Pliny the Elder has decided they are wrasse. No idea how well that reflects medieval understanding.

Chraekhret

Another one that doesn't exist, the echenais. Apparently Pliny has heard of some magical applications in love-charms, litigation, and obstetrics. The fish that anchors ships is a good addition to a fantasy setting, I think.

Dhrakyetor

Naturally the fish that looks like a serpent is the eel. More spontaneous generation, too, which is always nice. I swear I've heard that "giant eels in the Ganges" line somewhere before, but can't place it.

Eavbechtgi

Here we have the lamprey. I kind of wonder if this "head vs. tail" thing has something to do with its unusual head shape?

Fatrihrukh

Honestly I probably should have redacted the "many-footed" thing, because the name given is polippus, which... yeah, that actually tracks. I thought maybe this was the result of someone not bothering to actually count the limbs on an octopus, but it's apparently an obsolete umbrella term for octopus, squid, cuttlefish... all manner of tentacled cephalopod.

Griggkhraz

This is the torpedo, which is some fun etymology. The modern usage of torpedo is inherited from non-self-propelled naval mines, which were named after this torpedo, an electric ray. (Presumably they named mines after it because it hides itself & zaps you if you accidentally step on it.) The rays were named for their effect on people whom they zap: torpidus, 'numb'. This is of course cognate with English torpid. Which is a strange word to be cognate with the thing you shoot at boats.

Also:

...if a torpedo from the Indian sea is touched by a spear or rod, even from a considerable distance, the muscles of the fisherman's arms, even if they are very strong, grow numb...

Would that work if it were a metal rod?

Hretchngin

This is the crab. I did not know all of that about crabs, especially the basil thing.

Khaboghrad

Meet the sea urchin. That's why it specifies "the maritime kind" -- the other kind of urchin is a hedgehog. I don't know why the author calls it "worthless and contemptible", especially since they go on to say it can do this really cool thing. Just seems unnecessarily mean.

Lungyoggea

This one is just shellfish. All of them, apparently. The words given are conca and concle -- Latin concha covers shellfish in general.

Magtlegyeg

Naturally the pearl-bearing shellfish is the oyster, but I love the imagery of oysters going ashore to be fertilized by dew from heaven. The idea of going out at night to watch the oysters migrate onto land and catch the dew is another thing I'm taking note of for a fantasy setting.

Nolthrigyo

Someone probably clocked this one: it's the murex snail, source of the famous "tyrian purple" dye.

Ormlalaehr

Really pushing the definition of "fish" here is... the tortoise. Technically also the turtle, I guess, since the author specifies that this includes land and sea varieties. This is, I think, one that makes total sense once you know what it is, so we're moving on to our last one, which is also really pushing the "what is a fish" envelope...

Riggmungku

This is the frog, also obvious once you see it. The fact that it's being called a fish really throws you off, though, I think.

Ahrmegyaeb

Other fish produce living offspring from their bodies, like the great whales, dolphins, Ahrmegyaebs and others of this sort; when they have produced their young and have, perhaps, a premonition that these are ever threatened by some kind of trap or in danger, in order to protect them or to calm with a mother’s love the fear of those of tender years, they are said to open their mouths and hold their young, without harming them, in their teeth, and also to take them back into their body, concealed in their womb. What human affection can equal the sense of duty that we find in fish?

A face only a mother baby could love; while there are a lot of mouth brooding fish, I took more inspiration from crocodiles, so we have some babies (had to get the baby animals in!) peeking out from between the pointy teeth of a parent.

Bursgaenga

The Bursgaenga is so called because, they claim, it alone ruminates its food; other fish do not. They say it is a clever fish. For, caught in a pot, it does not try to break out with its forehead or try to stick its head through the wicker sides, but with rapid blows of its tail loosens the rear entrance of the pot and thus swims out through the back. If by chance another Bursgaenga sees it struggling, it seizes the captive’s tail between its teeth and helps it to break out.

Fairly obvious in terms of the behaviour, I gave the bursgaenga a bit of a cow-like face, and a tail slightly influenced by a thresher shark for whacking pots (and being good to grab on to).

Chraekhret

The Chraekhret is a very small fish, six inches long, which gets its name from the fact that it holds a ship fast by sticking to it; although the winds roar and the storms rage, the ship stays still, rooted, it seems, in the sea, immobile. The fish does this, not by holding the ship back, but simply by sticking on to it.

I suspect I know what this creature is, and I struggled a bit to think of a way to represent it sticking to the hull of the ship without it resembling my suspected fish... In hindsight, I could also have referenced lumpfish (very beautiful, very powerful) where the pelvic fins are modified into suction cups...

Dhrakyetor

Dhrakyetors, [redacted], get their name from their similarity to serpents, [redacted]. They are born from mud; for this reason, if you catch an Dhrakyetor, it is so smooth that the harder you grip it, the quicker it slithers away. They say that in the River Ganges, in the east, there are Dhrakyetors thirty feet long. If dead Dhrakyetors are soaked in wine, anyone drinking the liquor develops a loathing of wine. [I know we just had that same wine factoid in the previous sea creatures entry – either it works with multiple fish, or there’s a scribal error.]

Long boi fishy sliding around in mud. To be honest, there are a lot of animals that I suspect would make wine taste foul if you soaked them in it... 🤔🐠🍷

Eavbechtgi

The Eavbechtgi, [redacted], is called by the Greeks [redacted], because it twists itself into circles. Eavbechtgis, it is said, are of the female sex only and conceive from intercourse with snakes; as a result, fishermen catch it by calling it with a snake’s hiss. It is difficult to kill a Eavbechtgi with a single blow from a cudgel; you need to beat it repeatedly with a stick. It is a fact that the life-spirit of the Eavbechtgi is its tail, for when it is beaten on the head, it is difficult to kill; but when it is beaten on the tail, it dies at once.

Ignoring previous prompts for a moment,I figured this would have to be fairly long and flexible in order to twist itself into circles. Regarding its life spirit being in the tail, I interpreted this as it having a very long snout, but a short body.

Fatrihrukh

The name of the Fatrihrukh means ‘many-footed’, because it has a large number of coiling legs. It is a clever fish; it makes for the fisherman’s baited hook, catches hold of it by entwining it in its limbs, and does not let go until it has nibbled round the bait.

Although some fish do have 'legs', they don't tend to have many, so I figured in this case we are including assorted creatures that live in the sea as 'fish'. As such, it could be a many-legged polychaete worm like a ragworm. I wonder if the coiling legs act like propellors when it swims so I figu, legs + fish? Probably not taking tihs literally, polychaete worm like ragworm. wonder if the coiling legs act like propellers when it swims?

Griggkhraz

The Griggkhraz is so called because it numbs the body of anyone who touches it when it is alive. According to Pliny the second, if a Griggkhraz from the Indian sea is touched by a spear or rod, even from a considerable distance, the muscles of the fisherman’s arms, even if they are very strong, grow numb, and his feet, however fast they run, cannot move. So great is the power of the Griggkhraz, that even its breath has this effect on the limbs of the body.

Conversely, we're assuming here that any sea creature we don't get a description that indicates otherwise is an actual fish, in this case, one covered in toxic slime and radiating this into the surrounding water.

Hretchngin

The Hretchngin also plans a series of tricks to acquire food. For it has a taste for oysters and sets out to feast on their flesh. But because seeking food means looking out for danger, the more difficult the chase, the greater the danger. The Hretchngin’s quest is difficult because the food is enclosed within two very strong shells, for nature, acting in accordance with the will of the Creator, has furnished the softness of the flesh with walls, so to speak, nourishing and warming it within the shells in a bosom-like cleft, and the oyster spreads its flesh out as if in a valley. As a result, all the efforts of the Hretchngin come to nothing, because it has not the strength to open the closed oyster. The Hretchngin’s quest becomes dangerous if the oyster shuts its shell on one of the the Hretchngin’s claws. The Hretchngin resorts to strategy and works on the idea of setting a trap, using a new kind of trick. Because all kinds of animals yield to pleasure, the Hretchngin watches out for the time when the oyster, safely out of the wind and lying in the rays of the sun, opens its double-shelled prison in order to satisfy its inner longing for some fresh air. Then the Hretchngin, stealthily inserting a pebble, stops the oyster from closing its shell and, finding what was shut now open, it inserts its claws in safety and feeds on the flesh inside. [These guys come back around later, wherein the author repeats himself a bit, summarizing the above in a couple sentences and then adding the portion below.] They say that if ten Hretchngins are bound together with a handful of basil, all the scorpions in the neighbourhood assemble at that point. There are two kinds of Hretchngin, river and sea.

The noble Hretchngin, on its brave quest to, erm, eat all the oysters?

Ooh, this is a fun one (even if I got confused and drew mussells rather than oysters). Claws indicates a crustacean, so we have the claws and influenced by knightly helmets, with antennae atop its head like a plume.

Khaboghrad

The Khaboghrad is small, worthless and contemptible – I am talking about the maritime kind – and is customarily taken by seafarers as a sign of a storm ahead or as a herald of calm weather. When it senses that a stormy blast is on the way, it seizes a good-sized pebble and carries it as a kind of ballast, and drags it like an anchor lest it is thrown up by the swell. Thus it saves itself not by its own strength but by using weight from another source to steer a stable course. Sailors seize on this behaviour as a sign of bad weather to come and take precautions lest an unexpected hurricane should catch them unprepared. What mathematician, what astrologer, what Chaldean can make sense in this way of the course of the stars, or of the motions and signs of the heavens. By what instinct has the Khaboghrad acquired this skill? From what teacher has it learned this art? Who interpreted such omens for it? [The author continues in that vein for about a page.]

A small, worthless and contemptible fish... I may have taken a little pop-culture influence from this one 😉

Lungyoggea

The Lungyoggea and Lungyoggita are so called because they are hollow, that is to say, they empty themselves, at the waning of the moon. For the limbs of all the enclosed sea-creatures and shellfish grow at the waxing of the moon and empty when the moon is waning. For when the moon waxes, it increases a humour; when it wanes, it diminishes them. This is what physicians say. Lungyoggea is the name for those in the first state, that is, growing; but Lungyoggita are what they are called after they have shrunk - Lungyoggita, little Lungyoggea, so to speak.

So, a creature with limbs (or, at least one), that is hollow, and that grows or shrinks depending on the phase of the moon. Might be a bit of a stretch here, but I interpreted this prompt as a brachipod, (not a mollusc, an entirely different phylum, visually similar to bivalves but with a stalk-like pedicle that anchors them to substrate). I interpreted the pedicle as the 'limb', extending during a waxing moon and filter-feeding, and shrinking during a waning moon (and clamping its shell closed for protection).

Magtlegyeg

There are many species of shellfish, among them the pearl-bearing Magtlegyegs called [redacted], in whose flesh a precious stone is formed. The authors of the book of the natures of living things relate that at night these creatures go ashore and are fertilised by the dew from heaven, for which reason they are called [redacted].

So, this creature can create pearls, which means it has to be a mollusc (the only other animals I know that could produce pearls are the extinct Conulariids). We also know its mobile and can crawl out of the water, which means it probably has to be a gastropod, in this case I've taken it to be a large conch.

Nolthrigyo

The Nolthrigyo is a sea snail, so called from its sharp point and rough surface; it is known by another name, [redacted], because when you cut around it with an iron blade, it produces tears which are purple in colour, from which purple dye is made; from this comes the other name for purple, [redacted], because the dye is made from the fluid enclosed in the shell.

A different kind of snail here, the shell was fun to draw.

Ormlalaehr

The Ormlalaehr, [redacted], is so called because it is covered by the vault of its shell, in the manner of an arched roof. There are four species: land, sea, mud – that is, living in swamps or marshland; the fourth species belongs to rivers and lives in fresh water. Some relate the incredible fact that ships sail more slowly when they carry the right foot of a Ormlalaehr.

I went back and forth a bit about what kind of shellfish would work best with the arched shell, but settled on a cephalopod because I hadn't drawn one yet, because there is a mention of it having multiple feet (molluscs normally just have the one, but in this case we can interperet the two longer tentacles as separate 'feet'), and they're awesome! With the siphon located where it is it probably mostly moves backwards...

Riggmungku

Riggmungkus, [redacted], get their name from their constant chatter, because they make a croaking noise all around the marshes where they breed, calling out in an uncouth manner with their peculiar sound. Of these, some are called water Riggmungkus, others marsh; some are called Riggmungku-2, [redacted], because they live in brambles, [redacted]; they are larger than the others. Others are called Riggmungku-3, since they live among reeds, [redacted], and bushes; they are the smallest of all, they are green, they are dumb, and they have no croak. Riggmungku-4s are very small Riggmungkus living on dry ground or in fields, [redacted], from which they get their name. [I didn’t think the one-sentence ones rated their own spot, so they get numbers.]