Swandog (aka Xenia Eliassen) ([info]swandog) wrote in [info]beastsofyore,
  • Mood: cheerful
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. :)

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  • 28 comments

[info]magnoona

August 19 2005, 23:35:55 UTC 6 years ago

Shadahvar = <3 <3 <3. Persian unicorns are so lovably bastardly.

[info]swandog

August 20 2005, 21:19:15 UTC 6 years ago

I know!! :D <3<3<3

Anonymous

August 20 2005, 20:55:23 UTC 6 years ago

Can I choose which of these i'd like to do here? I'd love to give the Tetramorph a shot, if someone hasn't chosen it today. :P

[info]tillette

August 20 2005, 20:56:24 UTC 6 years ago

Whoops, sorry that was me. x_x Forgot to log in. ><;

[info]swandog

August 20 2005, 21:18:55 UTC 6 years ago

Yep, no one's chosen the Tetramorph, so you can definitely claim it! :D Please read the further info given in the two links, as it goes on to talk about the "wheels within wheels" that are associated with them. :)

[info]tillette

August 20 2005, 21:29:41 UTC 6 years ago

Alrighty, awesome! I'm pretty confident with my wings, so this should be fun. :D

[info]swandog

August 20 2005, 21:46:42 UTC 6 years ago

Here's a couple of other depictions:

http://vdjorbenadze.tripod.com/Ubisi/1984UbissaTheGreatTetramorph.jpg
http://www.seraphimelectric.com/Seraphim%20sketch.jpg

(Being a Christian myself, this Creature is one of my most favorite hybrids of all; I'm utterly facinated by them! <3<3<3)

[info]tillette

August 20 2005, 23:21:47 UTC 6 years ago

Thankies for all the help! I've started on a sketch now. :3

[info]swandog

August 22 2005, 00:20:00 UTC 6 years ago

Durn Tripod! I always forget it won't let you direct link. :P Anyways, if you go to this page and scroll down a bit, you'll see the Tetramorph pic: http://vdjorbenadze.tripod.com/Ubisi/Ubisi.htm They are either depicted as one creature with four faces on one head (as described above), or one creature with four separate heads (as in the pic links), or as four separate creatures having either two or six wings apiece. And the Shedu could possibly be yet another depiction, which is a creature with the bearded head of a man, the wings of an eagle, the body and tail of a lion and the legs and feet of an ox.

[info]tillette

August 22 2005, 21:58:46 UTC 6 years ago

Ooo, okay! Thankies. :3 And I may do a sketch of the Shedu interpretation and see which I like better. ^^

[info]swandog

August 22 2005, 22:30:50 UTC 6 years ago

Okies, here is a pic of it: http://webhome.idirect.com/~donlong/monsters/Html/Shedu.htm :)

[info]tillette

6 years ago

[info]moonykins

August 22 2005, 06:44:21 UTC 6 years ago

*creeps out of shadows*

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! :(

[info]moonykins

August 22 2005, 06:45:21 UTC 6 years ago

Searching for the Theow, that is. So I have no information about it, yet I'm still more attracted to that idea than the Bukephalos...

[info]swandog

August 22 2005, 12:20:22 UTC 6 years ago

Lemme double-check with Tyr first, because she was undecided between the Theow and the Sirrush, and I'll get right back to you. :) (And I don't know any more about the Theow than you do, but perhaps I can ask Profox, since he's German.) *snugs*

[info]moonykins

August 22 2005, 12:22:20 UTC 6 years ago

Thanks a bunch :) *snuggles*

[info]swandog

August 22 2005, 12:38:56 UTC 6 years ago

I'm trying to look up info on it, and I found that it was used as a heraldric emblem in the SCA, and that it was also called a Thea or a Thos, and had a (rainbow?) mane of many colors. The only pic I've found of it so far is this one (which shows it looking more like a dog and without a mane): http://www.heraldicclipart.com/catalog/Theow%20salient%20gouged%20and%20chained.GIF I'll keep searching tho. :)

[info]moonykins

August 22 2005, 12:45:20 UTC 6 years ago

Omg yay thank you! :D

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.

[info]swandog

August 22 2005, 12:54:41 UTC 6 years ago

If you have Windows or Mac, download GIMPshop instead, because it's a freeware version of Photoshop:

Windows: http://blog.yumdap.net/archives/20-GIMPshop-for-Windows.html
Mac: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17629

And Profox found this: http://www.ricks-place.ca/large/aoa4.htm but he said that all the German stuff had nothing to do with the particular "Theow" that we're talking about. :) *snugs*

[info]moonykins

August 22 2005, 13:01:17 UTC 6 years ago

Oooh, thanks! I'm downloading, uh, something for windows from GIMP now, a beta setup or something like that. Hope it's the right one - I got a bit confused ^^;

Haha, I thought so, but since I understand nothing of German I couldn't be sure :P

[info]swandog

August 22 2005, 13:17:03 UTC 6 years ago

Sayh will be home soon; perhaps he can help you set it up if you can't figure it out. (He just downloaded and installed it on my new Mac mini for me.) :)

[info]moonykins

6 years ago

[info]swandog

6 years ago

[info]tyreenya

August 22 2005, 15:35:46 UTC 6 years ago

I think I'm settled on the Theow- Sorry :( I let someone else have the Senmurv, and I can't find anything on my own ancestory (its all in Hungarian O.o;)

[info]swandog

August 22 2005, 18:07:55 UTC 6 years ago

Okies, I'll help Moony find another critter...but regarding the Theow, please see the info on it I posted above for Moony, and I also asked Eclipse about it, since he has a book with some info in it. He can comment here as well and sum up what it says. :) *hands the mike over to 'Clipse* ;)

[info]eclipsegryph

August 22 2005, 18:28:37 UTC 6 years ago

Heya, Tyr! Swannie asked me to help out how I could, so I'm going to just give you some brief info from what I know, and if I find anything out later I'll give you that, too. :)

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!

[info]watergazer

October 9 2006, 15:14:44 UTC 5 years ago

I am trying to find out more about this project, since I haven't heard of it before. I'm kinda out of the loop for projects. I'd be willing to do the vegetable lamb though. Is the gulon taken?

[info]swandog

October 11 2006, 00:11:31 UTC 5 years ago

The Gulon is taken, but not the Vegetable Lamb, I believe...will have to double-check on that. :) BTW, just tried to send you the hi-res of the swan card, and the e-mail bounced because your mail client thought it was spam. I'll note you over on DA with the link instead.
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