Elephants!
I've mentioned before that a lot of the people illustrating elephants in the Middle Ages had never actually seen one. This is just a recipe for hilarity.
 |
| Jacob van Maerlant, c. 1350 |
Take this wonderful example, for example. What thought processes must have gone into deciding to draw an elephant this way? Obviously you need to emphasize the trunk, so let's make it huge and funnel-like. And dangerous tusks growing out of it's mouth like a boar, but only pointed forward because that makes it look more scary. And they are supposed to be very tall so that must mean really long legs. And long legs means hooves like a horse... right?
 |
| Livre des simples médecines, France 15th century BnF, Français 623, fol. 165v |
Or maybe they had cloven hooves? Look, the guy who told me about elephants heard about them from this sailor named Bob and he just didn't talk about the feet at all... but at least we are on the same page about the trunk!
On reflection though, I kind of have to forgive these scribes for how they drew tusks. In all fairness the only corollary they had was boar's tusks that really do grow out of the lower jaw like that. But maybe someone could have stopped to think "What possible purpose could giant teeth sticking up way past the top of the head have served?" At this rate I'm not even sure how an elephant could have used their tusks for anything at all, even headbutting.
 |
| Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 4r |
Ok, the tusks here are much more boar-like and therefore actually useful. Plus bonus cute baby elephant! Also, there seems to be a thing about elephants and dragons being illustrated together...
 |
| Jacob van Maerlant. @BLMedieval Add Ms 11390 |
Almost-mythical beast, meet actual mythical beast! The text there is Middle Dutch and reads "The dragon sucks the elephant's blood." That's a little macabre, but the elephant seems to be into it. "O.M.G... an actual dragon, sucking my blood! I'm so happy! I am never washing this face again!"
 |
| Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 14429, Folio 114v |
This elephant, on the other hand, seems to have a better set of priorities. "Dude... what are you doing? Stop it, I need that blood... and that face. Ew."
Apparently dragons and elephants were actually mortal enemies and fought all the time. According to Pliny the Elder in Roman times, this is because Elephants were cold-blooded (what?!) and dragons would drink their cold blood to cool themselves down. And dragons, being greedy and always hungry and thirsty, would basically jump any elephant they saw. This lovely tale was then repeated by almost every medieval bestiary.
I wish I were making this up. But since I'm not, you can read for yourself a full excerpt from Bartholomaeus Anglicus, a 13th century Franciscan monk: Everlasting Fighting
Apparently dragons and elephants were actually mortal enemies and fought all the time. According to Pliny the Elder in Roman times, this is because Elephants were cold-blooded (what?!) and dragons would drink their cold blood to cool themselves down. And dragons, being greedy and always hungry and thirsty, would basically jump any elephant they saw. This lovely tale was then repeated by almost every medieval bestiary.
I wish I were making this up. But since I'm not, you can read for yourself a full excerpt from Bartholomaeus Anglicus, a 13th century Franciscan monk: Everlasting Fighting
 |
| ‘Li Bestiaires maistre Richart de Furnival’ ca. 1300 BnF, Français 25566, fol. 96v |
"Seriously dude, stop it. That's my blood, not yours, and I'm getting a little creeped out here"
Ok, enough of that. Moving on...
 |
| London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius B V, part 1, f. 81r |
Did I say medieval illustrators at least mostly got the trunk right? I stand corrected. This Anglo-Saxon depiction in the British library certainly seems to think that the trunk is entirely unnecessary. Or is the gratuitous tongue supposed to be the trunk? I did find one other image of tongue-as-trunk but since I can't find attribution for it, I'm not going to share here and you'll have to go to my pinterest if you want to see it.
| Der naturen bloeme, Jacob van Maerlant, c 1300 British Library, Add MS 11390 |
And elephants are strong! So strong that they can bench-press each other with just their trunks! Dost thou even hoist, brethren?
 |
| Switzerland, 142. BKS Cod. membr. 8 - Speculum Humanae Salvationis, f. 25 |
Did I mention that elephants were incredibly big and strong? So big and strong that you can build a full castle tower on their back and staff it with fully armored knights? But yet not so big that it's any longer from head to tail than one adult human male is tall.... look we're still working on that linear perspective thing, ok?
Although this one does have some linear perspective (along with crazy candy-melt feet) and there are still size problems. I guess either elephant castles were only manned by very tiny knights... or Eleazar was an absolute giant.
Oh yeah, that guy under the elephant in all of these pictures? That's Eleazar. He killed a war elephant once before being crushed to death beneath it, and now everyone can't stop talking about it.
 |
| Le Miroir de l'humaine salvation, French 15th century |
Although this one does have some linear perspective (along with crazy candy-melt feet) and there are still size problems. I guess either elephant castles were only manned by very tiny knights... or Eleazar was an absolute giant.
Oh yeah, that guy under the elephant in all of these pictures? That's Eleazar. He killed a war elephant once before being crushed to death beneath it, and now everyone can't stop talking about it.
 |
| Fresco at arcade 3 of the cross-coat of Brixen Cathedral, South Tyrol, Italy. Mid 15th century. |
Like this fresco in an Italian church, which is awesome for the trunk-as-actual-overgrown-nose and puffy lips combo.
 |
| "Sachsenheim- Gebetbuch" 1460 Cod.brev.162 Folio 81r |
But I think this one is my favorite. This poor elephant is just so ridiculous and doesn't even look like an elephant at all. He's more like an angry horse with a trombone for a nose.
As an aside, you remember that big battle scene in the "Return of the King"? You know, the last movie in the Lord of the Rings adaptation that Peter Jackson did? In that scene the Oliphants are so massive that they really did carry moving fortresses on their backs and could crush multiple men under one gigantic foot. Now forget for a second that it is utter fantasy, and realize that is probably really what people in the Middle Ages thought elephants were like when they heard all these crazy third and forth-hand stories about them. Total snapshot into the medieval mindset right there.
  |
| 'Hours of Joanna I of Castile,' or the 'Hours of Joanna the Mad' 1486-1506 Add MS 18852 Folio 203v & r, The British Library |
And of course, what is any good foray into medieval illumination without some grotesques? Because why just try to draw an actual elephant when you can make up a new animal with some of the elephants' best features? I actually picture these two little dudes as hamster or mouse size... which is totally adorable. Also a little split-personality as the myth of elephants being afraid of mice was already well underway. (No seriously, we can thank Pliny the Elder for that little gem as well)
So, there we have it. Badly done elephants that should make any new scribe sit up and say "I can do that!" Join me next week when we take to the skies and view some of our tiny furry friends... Bats!
No Fear Friday: Bats
Comments
Post a Comment