#ichtyocentaur

Prompt list by @crypticsketchpad

Here be Medieval Sea Monsters

This sea pig, which was compared to heretics that distorted truth and lived like swine, lived in the North Sea on Olaus Magnus’s 1539 Carta Marina, a lushly illustrated map that inspired many after it.

An ichthyocentaur (parts human, horse and fish) plays a viol on a map of Scandinavia from the 1573 edition of Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum. The sea surrounding Scandinavia showed sailing ships and this traditionally peaceful ichthyocentaur, perhaps suggesting safe passage.

Polypus (meaning “many-footed”) was used to describe many animals, from the lobster to the centipede to the octopus. While Olaus Magnus (1539) drew a giant lobster here, his text describes an octopus, showing the true confusion about what lived in the sea.

a sketch of my horse-fish-ram-thing bae :0