Some interesting Beasts not yet claimed, for those of you who are still searching... :)Shadhahvar: In Persia a single horn was the symbol for the highest cruelty and danger and therefore the Shadhahvar was regarded as a dangerous beast. It was described as a creature that looked somewhat like an antelope yet with a single horn on its forehead. This horn had hollow ends which created the most beautiful and tempting melodies when the wind was blowing through them. Other animals who heard these melodies were lured out of their hiding places by the sound and killed by the Shadhahvar at the very moment they had come too near to it.
Theow (aka Thea/Thos): A wolf with cloven hooves instead of paws and a mane of many colors.
Mermecolion: Creature with the head of a lion on the body of an ant.
Gansas: A swan with one webbed foot and one taloned one. Every year they migrate to the moon.
Martlet: A bird with no feet. It catches its food while flying, and therefore it appears never to stand on the ground.
Tetramorph: Described by Ezekiel as having the face of a man on the front of their head, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left and the face of an eagle on the back, six pairs of feathered wings (one par held upward, one spread to the either side, and one pair folded in front to cover the body), with "eyes" (or peacock-like eye-spots?) all over the top and bottom of their wings, with the torso, arms, hands and legs of a man, and the feet (hooves) of a calf. See
this and
this for more info.
Goose Tree/Barnacle Goose: A type of goose that grows on trees, and then drops into the water. Some people thought that these geese hatched from barnacles, and were thus able to eat them on Friday, since they were considered to be fish, not meat.
Sirrush (aka Sta): This creature is serpent-like, with the scaly head and skin of a snake, the forefeet and tail of a lion, and an eagle's talons for hind feet.
Ypotrill: Has a camel's humps, a boar's face, and cloven hooves. (Some depictions show it with a snaky tail.)
Vegetable Lamb: A stalk-like plant whose blossoms "issue a lamb". According to legend, once the lamb-blossoms have eaten all the vegetation within their reach, they die of starvation. Also according to legend, the vegetable lamb is considered a delicacy as its meat tastes like fish, and its blood like honey. Its bones can be used in rituals to give human beings the power of prophecy. Also called: Barbary Lamb, Barmotez or Tartary.
Bonacon: Also known as a Bonasus. A bull-like (or bison-like) creature with horns which curl inwards, a horse's tail and a short mane. Its horns were considered useless, but the creature was reported to be very dangerous as
it defends itself by shooting burning excrements at its enemies. XD
P.S. This tidbit about the Bonacon cracks me up:
"First noted in heraldry as a crest granted to Richard Chandelor in 1560. At present the SCA College of Arms has a precedent again the registration of such a monster: 'The bonacon was considered too offensive by a significant fraction of the College and is therefore not allowed for use in the SCA.'" Sissies! XD
~SD
Edit: The Shadhahvar, the Tetramorph, Barnacle Goose, Sirrush and the Theow have now been claimed. :)
August 19 2005, 23:35:55 UTC 6 years ago
August 20 2005, 21:19:15 UTC 6 years ago
Anonymous
August 20 2005, 20:55:23 UTC 6 years ago
August 20 2005, 20:56:24 UTC 6 years ago
August 20 2005, 21:18:55 UTC 6 years ago
August 20 2005, 21:29:41 UTC 6 years ago
August 20 2005, 21:46:42 UTC 6 years ago
http://vdjorbenadze.tripod.com/Ubisi/19
http://www.seraphimelectric.com/Seraphi
(Being a Christian myself, this Creature is one of my most favorite hybrids of all; I'm utterly facinated by them! <3<3<3)
August 20 2005, 23:21:47 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 00:20:00 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 21:58:46 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 22:30:50 UTC 6 years ago
6 years ago
August 22 2005, 06:44:21 UTC 6 years ago
Do you think I can change from Bukephalos to Theow? The Theow draws my interest more than Bukephalos does :/
I tried searching for it on google, though, and all that came up was german sites and other useless sites, and I don't understand german...
Gah, I'm absolutely empty of ideas for either creature, though. No ideas for poses, no ideas for setting and background, no ideas for symbolism, nothing! :(
August 22 2005, 06:45:21 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 12:20:22 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 12:22:20 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 12:38:56 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 12:45:20 UTC 6 years ago
You're such a sweetie helping me with all this <3
Also, as soon as I've figured out pose, background, symbolism, all that jazz (hopefully with some help from you and others, because I am completely empty, sadly), I'm gonna download a trial for photoshop. I won't download it untill I know more or less what my drawing will look like, because the trial is only about 30 days or so, and it would be a bit of a bummer downloading it now, and then maybe only be half finished or even less with the final product for the portfolio when the trial locks itself.
August 22 2005, 12:54:41 UTC 6 years ago
Windows: http://blog.yumdap.net/archives/20-GIMP
Mac: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17
And Profox found this: http://www.ricks-place.ca/large/aoa4.ht
August 22 2005, 13:01:17 UTC 6 years ago
Haha, I thought so, but since I understand nothing of German I couldn't be sure :P
August 22 2005, 13:17:03 UTC 6 years ago
6 years ago
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August 22 2005, 15:35:46 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 18:07:55 UTC 6 years ago
August 22 2005, 18:28:37 UTC 6 years ago
Like the Opinicus and Keythong, the Theow is primarilly regarded as strictly a heraldic creature, that is, it was created for a symbolic and aesthetic nature as a charge for someone's coat-of-arms, never really having been estabilshed as a "true" mythical creature.
Now that not is to suggest that it wasn't a true mythical best, but that I have yet to have found any information regarding sightings or writings about it - everything that I have points to heraldry as the beast's origin.
To that point I searched my Fox-Davies and curiously found nothing on the Theow. That was quite a surprise. Neither could I find anything in Joeseph Nigg's "Book of Fantastic Beasts", nor Friar and Ferguson's "Basic Heraldry". I DID, however, establish an interesting find in Brooke-Little's "An Heraldic Alphabet". The entry for Theow in that book reads thus:
"Theow (also Thoye) A wolf-like monster but with a cow's tail and cloven hooves. It is a beast of the Cheyne family." Then there is an image of a Theow rampant, much like the one Swannie linked you to. This entry is unique in that it mentions a family who commonly used the Theow as a charge, yet mentioned nothing of it's multicolored nature, which is common in other descriptions of the charge. (Oddly enough, the term "chene" is used in heraldry to denote an oak tree.) Odder still is that "Cheyne" is a Scottish surname, where I have thought that the Theow was primarilly associated with the Germanic lands.
I searched the Internet for a connection between Cheyne and Theow, but sadly came up with nothing. Even when I searched various resources for the Cheyne coat of arms I found no less than three variations, but none of them contaning a Theow or anything even remotely similar.
I'm afraid that is all that I could come up with at the time, little though it may be. I shall try to do more when I return from work later today. :) Have a good one, Tyr, and have fun with this project! It sounds wonderful!
October 9 2006, 15:14:44 UTC 5 years ago
October 11 2006, 00:11:31 UTC 5 years ago