That’s actually true. On Fridays, Catholics aren’t allowed to eat any meat but fish, but during the Medieval period they still ate frogs and beavers because they could swim and swimming = fish.
The turtle one is actually so genius! A turtle looks like two shields with a head and legs sticking out, so obviously a medieval monk will use literal medieval kite shields with a head sticking out. It's funny, but it makes sense.
@naka Just because some Europeans saw them, doesn't mean the artist saw them. Remember, they had no photographs or anything, just eye witness descriptions.
@naka that is like saying "I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to take care of a child cause they're all over the world, people only do the wrong thing because they just want to be bad parents" that simply isn't true
@@salt7625 yeah, information isn't naturally distributed equally. The information age has accompanied such a great proficiency for learning that from a modern chronocentric perspective it's difficult to dissociate the internet's ubiquitous influence and utilities because for many, it's practically intrinsic to life. But that's an extremely modern bias. Knowledge comes *to* us today, but before? The manics and academics searched *for* knowledge, at any cost. Even among them their knowledge was sparse and fallacious, lectures and tabulated details were not perfect sources for information. Secondary sources will always be malleable, they can always be misinterpreted. That's not even calculating for a layperson's egocentric and limited explanations. What could someone expect artists to do with eyewitness accounts, when even in the age of surveillance cameras eyewitnesses misremember details? Should they recreate perfect anatomy from the words of superstitious populations which have a track record for poetic misunderstanding? Kinda... unlikely, to say the least.
A possible reason the turtles would have been depicted as having shells like that is because many Germanic language variations of their names derive from the word for "shield". For instance, in German, Swedish, Dutch and Danish it is known as a "shield-toad". Some artists of the time may have interpreted this name a little bit too literally.
Monk 1 : "I need to draw a whale for this book, what do they look like?" Monk 2: "I know a guy who knows a guy who talked to an old drunken one-eyed sailor who saw one from a mile away when he was young"
The cameleon at 6:02 is beautifully drawn. Of all the animals in the video it's the only one that actually looks as if it's alive. The others mainly look like examples of bad taxidermy.
These all look fun, but i dare you to make an accurate drawing of an animal you have never seen just going by the half remembered, exaggerated descriptions of uninterested sailors and merchants.
@@ExtremeMadnessX how knows maybe the person who descriped it to the artist didn't see it very will becuse if he did he'll die they Either see it from far away or just see it for half a second or doesn't remember Specifically how it looked the just Remember the shape also we call them artists but they aren't artist at all they are just monks
Funny: Turtle is "Schildkröte" in German, the words mean "shield" and "toad". The first picture of a turtle looks exactly like a toad with an shield on it.
Were crabs mainstream food ? If not I don’t think they would know what crabs are unless they live near them Edit: I changed we’re to were, stupid autocorrect
Actually, elephants were used in wars, and they DID at times have harnesses with literal wooden fortifications on their backs that would have several archers be behind parapets, like in castles. Saying "they had castles on their backs" is therefore not completely inaccurate either, it were just wooden ones.
@@Singleraxis Hannibal legit just pulled a LOTR tier fantasy battlw during the Battle of The Alps to a point that it spawned fantastical description of Elephants lmao
You lost me when you put "cool" and "pokemon" in the same sentence. Drop in the medieval time reference and I'm out. My vagina just turned into the Sahara desert. 🙈 😂🤣😂🤣
Imagine if these medieval artists had made their way to Australia. Animals like the platypus were still baffling Europeans as late as the Victorian era.
animals like the playpus are still baffling me today like they just look like something that should not exist its a cross between an otter, a beaver, and a duck who got in an unfortunate car accident or an otter who got a sock stuck on his nose and dont even get me started on some of the baby platypus images
@@sapphiredawn4321 India was using war elephants way too often But China is different, since there are no wild elephant in China they have to import elephant from South and South East Asia... That is why I say they implemented War Elephants in *Some* of their wars One Ancient China war that I know of using War Elephants is the Qin's War of Unification More specifically the Hangu Pass War
Imagine being shown only images like these, and hearing the stories that come with them for your whole life only to see and learn about the actual animals. That would either be the scariest experience, or the most relieving experience.
@@rfresa or live ones that just died out. Let's face it, if an asteroid killed them all it would have killed every thing else. Humans however are good at killing things off.
"Ok man I want you to paint an animal for me" "Sure" "It's a lizard about the length of my hand, has two big eyes that point in two directions, a long tongue, hands and feet that look like oven mitts and long tail that curls like a spiral." *draws horse* done!
okay, but be fair: your cousin goes “yeah, saw an animal in the woods. had these weird ears, rat like tail, kinda armored lookin, long pig snout, stubby legs,” and then try to draw an armadillo without ever seeing one and using only this description
"Bees are the smallest of birds. They are born from the bodies of oxen, or from (...corruption...) the decaying flesh of slaughtered calves; worms form in the flesh and then turn into bees. Bees live in community, choose the most noble among them as king, have wars, and make honey. Their laws are based on custom, but the king does not enforce the law; rather the lawbreakers punish themselves by stinging themselves to death." Yep those guys had it all figured out :) Medieval Bestiaries are fun to read
This actually did start happening in the middle ages--there are written accounts of monks who ventured into central Asia in search of some of the animals described by Herodotus in his works. The monks wrote back, "wow, Herodotus was an idiot, I haven't found any gigantic gold-mining ants yet, or one-footed umbrella-people."
Jokes aside, it would be really cool to see a videogame where these inaccurate depictions are actual, living monsters. Imagine fighting off a pack of those "hyenas" or a bunch of sword wielding rabbits. I'd buy that in a heartbeat 😂.
Not gonna lie, it portray how common object if it being described to those who don't know. Try to explain a three piece suit in medieval time is interesting. It look like what noble wear, yet felt lacking the ornament.
@@rizkyanandita8227 Not really. Medieval nobles tended to wear tunics, tights and flowy clothing. Completely different than a modern three piece suit which has both pants and a buttoned up shirt. The jacket or coat would be a bit more similar to a cloak but then again it wouldn't be flowy and instead form fitting and would have the buttons all the way down. In the Renaissance you'd find a bit more similarity due to the use of collars but not quite yet for buttoned up clothing, that has to wait for the Enlightenment.
Sometimes it is possible to trace these misunderstandings by looking at the text or thinking how someone might try to describe the thing. For instance, there is the "vegetable lamb" which seems to be a misunderstanding of cotton: European guy: "Hey, neat fabric! It's so cool and breathable! What's it made of?" Syrian merchant: "Well...You know how you make clothes out of sheep wool? Well, there's this plant that has like clumps of wool growing off it." European guy goes home, relates this story to local monk. Resulting picture: Tree with sheep growing on it.
Their was the description of Antelope. No hunter can approach it (they meant Antelope always heard the hunters coming) they have horns like saws. No one could get close enough so the ribbed horns looked like curved saws they used to make, Antelope used these saw horns to cut down trees, the research’s saw the Antelope scratch it’s horn on some thin tree and knock them down and assumed that’s what the horns are meant for.
There is an idiom in China called "hearsay", which refers to spreading what one hears on the road seriously and without reason; Metaphorically unfounded rumors
something to keep in mind about these illustrations is that in the medieval era (at least in Europe), the religious institutions and scholarly institutions were generally one and the same. any study of animals was done through a Christian-centric lens and assumed that every animal put on Earth was done so to represent a moral lesson, which is probably why stories like the pelicans eating each other became prevalent. another one is about the antelope, which medieval writers described as having two horns not because of any evolutionary advantages like mating displays or defense from predators, but because the horns represented cutting one's self away from sin and vice. as hilarious as these old illustrations are, i think they can make for fascinating studies of the cultural mindset they were drawn under.
Reminds me of the restoration of the painting featuring the lamb of God, people disliked how the lamb’s face became uncanny humanoid after the restoration, but as it turned out, the generic lamb face the painting had prior the restoration was really just an overpaint done some time ago, while the creepy lamb was actually the original, and it’s human features were done on purpose, the artist was capable of drawing animals super well, and it’s supposed to be something divine and overworldly, not just some random sheep
I feel like the people drew chameleons as all of these different creatures because they thought they were like shapeshifters, misunderstanding accounts of them changing their appearance to blend into their environment.
I think you could be right, I never thought about that! For me, the fact that they are often portrayed as hairy/fluffy was - in my opinion - because of their name "chameleon", which in the ears of a medieval monk would probably have sounded like "a mix of a camel and a lion", leading to these representations with mammal paws an furry bodies.
if you consider the first source to be a (likely drunken) sailor, who told a merchant, who told a maid, who told the artist... and likely none of them were good at taxonomy... i can happen :P I bet if we now play at describing a teddy bear without saying its a teddy bear (and only its appearance, not materials), then hand a second person the description and ask them to write them back 1 hour later and a third person has to draw it without knowing its a teddy bear and i would bet it can go medieval
Here is my try: It was an aquatic animal that jumped in and out of water. Instead of the scaly skin and the veiled fins which characterizes the familiar fish; it had a smooth, blue skin and stunted front limbs which jutted out of its side. In addition, it had a dorsal fin much like that of a sharks and a tail whose wings were to the sides. The animal had no hind limbs. When it comes to its head, Its side facing eyes were beady and dark. Its muzzle was elongated forwards and housed many small teeth. The peculiar curves around its facial structure gave it a look of carefree happiness.
@JZ's Best Friend Imagine a thousand years from now there'll be a youtube video titled: hilariously inaccurate depictions of aliens in silicone-age art.
The German word for turtle literally means "shield toad". Given that name and describing it having aquatic features, the depiction at 4:39 is actually not that far off.
the designer's like "I followed the brief, those were your requirements. There's the shield. Why does it have a crest on it? Because shield? dude you're confusing me. What do you actually mean? Whyyyyy did I take this commission???"
@@alexbrown8900 which is funny, because the name originated from when people first discovered it. They found them in the Nil, but now they don't live the anymore, but people still think that they do because of the name.
The peculiar thing is that even older Neolithic cave paintings are actually quite good and accurate. We can clearly see deer-like creatures and mammoths in those paintings (at least accurate comparing to real Mammoth Arctic findings).
it's because they were drawing the animals they actually SAW every day. These people drew from the end of the chain of bad descriptions passed from one drunken sailor to another
The first crocodile image actually makes a little sense. I could see a medieval person describing a crocodile as a river dragon, which would explain the wings. The beak could be because a crocodile has a pointed snout.
True. I still think of crocodiles as basically real world water dragons, especially considering how much such creatures ended up inspiring a lot of ancient and medieval dragon myths and art
Its tall stands on two legs and can jump and has a pouch which it carries babies in on its stomach and they have arms that allow them to slap eachother
something tells me kangaroos would be depicted as "two-headed" creatures because of the baby in the pouch and we'd end up with a CatDog style monstrosity
That's what happened when people in the past found dinosaurs remains did and even nowadays, we could at best know that they have scales and in certain species, feathers, but beyond that, their looks and their muscle texture were only reverse constructed using existing knowledge on how bones and muscles works. As to how certain species flies or swim in a way that is not found in present day animals became a game of fact-based guessing. Beyond that, their colour would remain a mystery forever - I mean for example, how would you know a Zebra or a tiger or leopard have strips and dots if all you found were some bones?
@@stormmeansnowork There are some feathered dinosaurs with melanosomes preserved within their fossils, which actually determine what color they were in life. Granted, this is a rare kind of perseveration, and a more recently-discovered one too.
I've read that ostriches and emus do indeed eat small metal objects, seemingly without any harm to themselves, as witnessed by many owners. An autopsy of a captive ostrich in the 1930s shows that its stomach contained "copper coins, metal tacks, staples, hooks, and a four-inch nail". The "scorpion" at 5:32 looks exactly like the various "free-tailed" bats of Europe, at least its lower half, right down to the down the colour and finely clawed toes. I would say it is drawn from life. The artist probably knew bats because they likely lived in the towers of the monastery The artist has shown the bat as it looks clinging to a hard surface. He has removed the bats folded-up wings, changed the face and decorated the spine.
I guess medieval artists forgot to look at ancient Roman mosaics: Their animal depictions are very accurate. After all, they imported all sorts of beasts for their arenas.
Most likely they didn't have access to such things at all. They couldn't just "check a source" most of the time. This was before even the press, after all.
The Romans had mastered realism long before. Take a look at early British attempts to copy Roman coins for another example. The copies are crude caricatures at best.
There wasn't google or reliable sources back then, so obviously a medieval artist wasn't able to draw an image of an animal accurately if it's from a different geographical region. Plus, medieval artists didn't obsess over realism and accuracy the same way ancient Roman or Renaissance artists do and prefered to use iconography.
Well hippopotamus is a Latin word derived from the ancient Greek word hippopótamos (aka ἱπποπόταμοςaka, aka hippos potamios, aka riverine horse), at least according to Merriam-Webster and wiktionary
1. elephants are often used in certain cultures to hold "buildings" with people in them, like little carriages 2. hyenas are scavengers and therefore it makes sense for them to be "eating the dead"
3. The pelicans aren't eating each other, it's not a cannibal medieval legend but Christian symbolism. According to western Christianism, pelican parents were the embodiment of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for humanity. Pelican parents would wound themselves to feed their babies their own blood whenever there's no food and they are starving. This video is full of bs. Their source is "trust me bro".
I'm pretty sure the "castles" depicted on the elephant's backs are meant to represent Howdahs and the image of an Elephant and Castle is a stylized symbol of strength in medieval English art. I don't think medieval people thought elephants could carry a literal castle on their back.
Based on how their art is, it's hard to be sure. If you see consistent inaccuracies then it's hard to say that a few are out of context otherwise how do you justify the rest?
Medieval people lived in a Mad Max-esque world after the fall of Rome. These artists were literally going by word of mouth and I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought Elephants carried castles due to mistranslations of elephants carrying Howdah which is a carriage that elephants used to carry people with on their back.
@@31oannamphong66 Indians did put Towers on elephants. But wooden ones. Maybe some trader told them about elephants with towers and they were like "woah, out of stone and stuff? Thats rad lets draw it."
I love these medieval animal illustrations, they're literally so creative and funny. I went to an art museum the other day that had a few medieval paintings and a lot of the animal depictions literally had me laugh out loud. When you think about it tho it is immensely interesting to think about how you would imagine some exotic animals based purely on explanations that might even just reach you second, or third hand with months, or even years between the sighting and the description. Rly something that we don't get to experience anymore, now that any information and imagery is just a few finger swipes away.
@@CSLucasEpic I think so. Though as there was a known land animal with 4 legs and a face horn, it would be easy to convince people who would have no way to know any better. They didn't have photography or any proper first person sketches. That's a big reason naturalists were also sketch artists later on who spent time drawing animals extremely accurately
And dinosaurs are for dragons They probably saw another dinos bones next to one and assumed it had wings Also they like to give animals super powers so the fire breath comes from there Dragons in the east are more peaceful then the west because of difference in culture there they are represented by water rather then fire which could mean that the first dinosaur found may be near a river and a serpent which resembles there shape in asian myths which is like a giant snake a titanaboa(the worlds largest snake fossil) may be the one found
@@lifeispoetry8349 Well because there couldn't be any reasons I could think of for why they'd hide it and because a random person would probably eventually find out one way or another
Some Asian war elephants actually had “towers” or rather, carriages on its back. I’m pretty sure when the artists heard about it, it was described to them as a tower by a storyteller, veteran, who actually seen it.
The japanese interpretations of giraffes where also quite interesting, resulting in the mystic being Kirin (also the name for giraffe) which often looks like a cross between a dragon and horse
The origin of this went back to China in the 15th century when admiral Zheng He who was ordered to explore the world for treasures, brought back a giraffe from his voyage to the imperial court, causing huge interest and imagination among the people. People thought this mysterious animal is the mythical Qilin, a dragon, horse, lion hybrid with scales and fur. Giraffes being called Qilin followed its way to Japan, which was pronounced Kirin. While Japan still calls giraffes Kirin, China has called them "Changjinglu", "long necked deer" for a long time.
@@Tattyelfa17 What does that has to do with this thread? And do you know that the origins of anime eyes was Disney's Bambi? Osamu Tezuka the creator of Astro Boy was a big fan of Disney animations and drew Astro Boy with the eyes of Bambi, the style then developed from there. And now it has even gone full circle, Disney's 3D animation films have anime like eyes. Don't insult things you are clueless about, it only makes you look bad.
I think this is genuinely where the myth of the unicorn came from. You describe a rhinoceros as a quadruped with a horn in the middle of its face, someone's going to draw a horse with a horn.
Actually, the myth of the unicorn comes from the one horned goat phenomenon. A one horned goat is a genetic mutation that occurs amongst certain species of goats and was once thought to be a symbol of divinity. For some reason, the one horned goat over time became a one horned horse.
The myth of the unicorn (as well as the dragon) is thousands of years older than the medieval period and spans several continents. There is no way to know exactly where it came from or how it got started, since it goes back before any written history we have access to.
"According to historical records, all non-human animals were either big fish, crows, or (most frequently) dogs. It is, as of now, unknown how these animals were able to so rapidly evolve into their current forms" - historians
The Questing Beast from Arthurian legend was described as having: the head and neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion and the feet of a hart. The legend is actually describing a giraffe, so giraffes are canon in Camelot.
I saw a video by The History Guy saying that back in the 1400’s someone gave two giraffes to the Emperor of China, and he claimed it was a mythical dragon! From some half ass description of the dragon that he warped to his advantage.
@@JettMoonwing Pregnant giraffe with diarrhea? So those "knights" didn't just attacked and killed animal that would not attack them but that animal was also sick!!
As an artist I'm just impressed and curious of how these existed, my logic is that since art was a luxury back then, ppl who drew these mostly got their info by someone's description, like "there's this big ass animal with two spears and a strange rope-hand in it's face, massive size like a house, so strong 4 men died trying to capture it" "So hear me out there's this creature in the sea, they're so big I bet they can eat entire ships, it can jump out of the water too" "I saw a weird deer that had a very long neck and vibrant colors, it ate only from they tallest trees" amazing
There is an idiom in China called "hearsay"(道听途说), which refers to spreading what one hears on the road seriously and without reason; Metaphorically unfounded rumors
The thing is from these pictures I can understand where the misunderstanding comes from. Try describing what you’re seeing with what you know to people who have never seen it and watch what they draw from your description. The big nose of the Hippo drawn long instead of fat, the giant teeth of a Hippo drawn as tusks. Big ears of elephants also drawn long instead of fat, the castle on it’s back was a special kind of tent- saddle thing (I forget what it’s called) but they exist in Africa and parts of India. You look at it and you can generally understand what their description of it probably was and the misunderstandings that came from the description
Indeed And I get the whole explanation of everyone had no comparison back then of just a handful of animals but it doesn’t explain other animal depictions like hyenas,which look exactly like a hunchback dog,and the fact that many of these scholars definitely had the resources to go get some of these animals It gets so bad that you wonder if either they were joking or were truly that ignorant And still I understand what life was like but they were still so much to draw from even in the simple lives of a peasant to describe these animals as to not look like a buffoon (ignoring the premise that people over exaggerate things to become the next big shot)
@@spacetacos7574 A lot of the times they are not trying to be accurate. It's just a certain style. The scream painting, Anxiety, Portrait of a woman, they all feature humans but are not accurate representations. Medieval depictions of many things were highly stylized and not meant to be accurate representations.
@@nipoone6109 but many of some of those paintings were by actual scholars who had to do things “accurately” and by all means had the resources to do so yet end up with that
I love how a common misconception was that Ostritches could eat and digest anything, including metal. Some dude probably saw some ostritch gremlin eating coins or rocks for no reason and was like "Ayo how it do that" and in reality ostritches are just really stupid.
@@trent_king Since when do unicorns exist? It's highly likely it was just an incorrectly drawn rhinoceros, which later adapted itself as a different species.
Despite all the inaccuracies, you gotta admit that those people can make some good drawings. And also I'd love to see a fantasy book or game with those designs
The designs are not that outlandish but you may want to check out the game Inkulinati It's still in early acess but it does the medieval art aesthetic in an interesting way
I always try to imagine what it was like to live in a world that was largely undiscovered. Seeing one of these things for the first time must have been terrifying, can't blame the artists for not sticking around to get all the details
This highlights something I think a lot of people don't think about, the mindset of people from any point in time far from our own. They didn't have internet, tv, and hardly any books even. Most people couldnt read anyway. Imagine if your entire world was your little village, and traveling 1 or 2 towns over to visit a relative was a month long adventure. Imagine the amount of speculation and misinformation. Even the well educated people like the ones who drew these pictures and wrote the books they were in were working with a first, second, maybe even third or more person's description of animals so different from what they know that this is the best their imagination can come up with, the best they can comprehend. I think it's just super interesting to try to imagine the mindset of people from centuries ago. It's really hard to put yourself in their shoes, but I think its vital to understand their lives through their stories and art. A lot of times I think our modern way of thinking takes us a completely different direction than was intended. I think that even applies to understanding things like how the pyramids were built and all those things we today think would have been so impossible it must be aliens, lol. We obviously do not understand people from the past in many ways.
Lots of the images of Pelicans you showed actually play into a distinctly different Medieval myth; if you look closely, many of the images show the mother inflicting a wound on herself, which the children drink the blood of. This was supposedly how the young fed - almost like a grim alternative to breastfeeding. This selfless, blood-related sacrifice was a big draw for the heavily-christian scholars of medieval Europe at the time, who linked it with Christ's sacrifice, giving the bird a big boost in popularity amongst the clergy and upper nobility, even if the "pelican" in question is a far cry from what any kind of real pelican looks like. Interestingly, this lead to the pelican having its own unique status in European heraldry, being the only animal that can be displayed "in its piety" - feeding its young with its own blood. I'm not sure if any crests survive with a pelican in its piety; if someone knows of one, do let me know.
Pellicano di Gioiosa's family crest featured a Pelican feeding her blood to her child. Pellicano di Gioiosa was a noble family from the city of Gioiosa Jonica (Calabria, Italy)
The state flag of Louisiana has a pelican feeding its chicks with its blood. It’s mildly frustrating when they censor or forget the blood drops because it kinda defeats the point.
I guess if you view a pelican from a distance feeding it chicks where like many bird it regurgitates food it this case into the bill pouch it would look like the chicks are eating its blood.
Funnily enough this is how we got a lot of our most famous mythical creatures through the same long-distance telephone game that is history- the Giraffe is turned into the Questing Beast, Rhino turned into the Unicorn, Tiger to Manticore, King Cobra to Basilisk, etc
I feel like if I traveled back in time and started drawing foreign creatures realistically for British people I would feel like an all powerful oracle with magical sight of far off lands… and then I’d be burned to death and they’d look at my drawings and go “can you believe this crap? No way this is what a hippopotamus looks like. I mean, come on!”
My favorite thing about Medieval mythical creatures and monstrous people is that you can tell that the one describing the creature was either exaggerating or saying something derogatory but the artist took all of it literally.
I applaud these attempts. I can't even imagine how I'd draw an elephant if I've never seen one before. Makes you wonder how the artists would've have felt if they ever did see an actual elephant, which I'm sure a very select few eventually did.
@Varoon Hippopotamuses and octopuses. Not hippopotami and octopi, because, again, those names are not Latin. You could say octopodes for the Greek-style plural of octopus, but I never read or hear “octopodes” as the plural of octopus.
@@censusgary you absolutely can use those two Latinised versions as plural... they have been in use a long time already. just because the words are originally Greek doesn't mean a thing; you might as well say there is no plural for '''envelope''' in English, just because it's a French word... when the obvious and correct answer is 'envelopes' 🤷🏻♂️ ....that's be stupid.... don't be stupid
These designs would be awesome if rendered and used for some type of fictional media. I could even see a medieval cartoon about an explorer going to the new world, and they use only depictions from these types of art so that even the modern audience can relate to the feeling of discovering something new. Then in the credits they could show these 2D versions.
"dogs are the only animals in the world right?" "Yes, big dogs, small dogs, dogs with shells, dogs with 10 legs, dogs with 2 legs, dogs with 15 feet long necks, dogs with 15 foot long tails, dogs in the ocean, dogs in the sky.... Basically, everything is dogs"
It does explain a lot about how animal companions are depicted in movies, especially family films. Doesn't matter what kind of animal it is. It's either mentally a human or mentally a dog.
One of mom's friend did this with her kid, because he was TERRIFIED of all animals for some reason, except dogs. So every single animal was a different type of dog.
Bruh according to them every living thing that is on water must have some scales or have fish-like attributes. I mean we're talking about the same literal medieval artists that thinks scorpions looks like a fricking dog ffs.
I think the myth of Pelicans eating one another comes from when they feed their young, the pelican has its head almost fully in the parents mouth eating out of her pouch.
In my country hippos are called Kudanil (Kuda=horse Nil=Nile river, means horse of Nile river). As a kid I believe it is a typical horse, just from different location. So I feel you, medieval artist.
There's a theory Giraffes inspired the image of dragons. If you describe them with large bodies, long legs, jaguar pattern, snake like neck, horse like head and horns (Giraffes literally have "horns") then a medieval monk would draw a dragon. Historical animal science is really fascinating, especially how it relates to folklore!
@@CMatt007 No, dragons have a real life inspiration that are not bones. It’s the crocodile. Notice how the crocodile has a very serpentine body, lives in the river, and are extremely dangerous.
Traveler: "I saw this animal able to change colors, it was called a chameleon"
Monk: "Hm, colorful camel or lion. Got it."
That animals is not from here better not to tell where it from😏 keep it a secret is good
But how did they know camel?
Lmao
@@Hary0n fairly extensive trade between east and west even then
@@Hary0n camels live in Europe
"So you say it lives in water?"
"Yes"
"Alright, fish it is then"
That’s actually true. On Fridays, Catholics aren’t allowed to eat any meat but fish, but during the Medieval period they still ate frogs and beavers because they could swim and swimming = fish.
@@ajzeg01 water birds got often also classified as fish 😂
Bruh...
"It lives on land?"
"Yes"
"Dog-cat-horse it is, then"
Capybara: "Guess I'm a fish"
The turtle one is actually so genius! A turtle looks like two shields with a head and legs sticking out, so obviously a medieval monk will use literal medieval kite shields with a head sticking out. It's funny, but it makes sense.
In German we call them Schildkröte (shield toad). The drawings are accurate to that name!
Sorry to be that person, but they are heater shields not kite shields.
But... it's not as if there where no tortoise in europe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@Jessie91J In Swedish we call them Sköldpadda, which also means shield toad. I was ecstatic when I saw these drawings!
@@simonz5905 Maybe Southern Europe, but not Northwest Europe.
5:43
Me: “Oh that one’s easy. That’s a horse!”
*”The Chameleon!”*
Me: “What the actual heck..”
Hey, it's blue and red at the same time, HOW did u not see its a chameleon
@@mymagnumDONGBecause… well… LOOK AT IT!! How is that a chameleon?! 💀💀
I was thinking of a Zebra 💀
@@osfex SAME!
@@mymagnumDONG the only way you can see it as chameleon is if u drunk
Writer: "I need illustration for this book about tiger."
Painter: "Best I can do is dog."
Lol
😂😂😂
Damn hey he tried.
Like a cheap tattoo parlor, “you want a tiger?, I can really draw a dog, how about a dog?”
@@alphagt62 lmao imagine getting some of these illustrations tattooed
Medieval art in general is like leaving the "artist" enclosed in a room all his life and asking him to paint from descriptions of drunk sailors
Who hear it from another drunk sailors
Lmao
@@rizkyanandita8227 who saw the animals by looking through a cracked telescope, also while drunk
Underrated comment
It’s not like that, it just literally IS that, considering these illustrations were done by monks.
when the only animals you've ever seen are cats, dogs, horses, and cows- everything is gonna look like a cat, a dog, a horse, or a cow
@naka Just because some Europeans saw them, doesn't mean the artist saw them.
Remember, they had no photographs or anything, just eye witness descriptions.
@naka that is like saying "I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to take care of a child cause they're all over the world, people only do the wrong thing because they just want to be bad parents" that simply isn't true
@@salt7625 yeah, information isn't naturally distributed equally. The information age has accompanied such a great proficiency for learning that from a modern chronocentric perspective it's difficult to dissociate the internet's ubiquitous influence and utilities because for many, it's practically intrinsic to life.
But that's an extremely modern bias.
Knowledge comes *to* us today, but before? The manics and academics searched *for* knowledge, at any cost.
Even among them their knowledge was sparse and fallacious, lectures and tabulated details were not perfect sources for information. Secondary sources will always be malleable, they can always be misinterpreted. That's not even calculating for a layperson's egocentric and limited explanations.
What could someone expect artists to do with eyewitness accounts, when even in the age of surveillance cameras eyewitnesses misremember details? Should they recreate perfect anatomy from the words of superstitious populations which have a track record for poetic misunderstanding?
Kinda... unlikely, to say the least.
Don’t forget fish
@@edgarrosales9873 birds and rodents too! lots i missed haha
A possible reason the turtles would have been depicted as having shells like that is because many Germanic language variations of their names derive from the word for "shield". For instance, in German, Swedish, Dutch and Danish it is known as a "shield-toad". Some artists of the time may have interpreted this name a little bit too literally.
Well, that is why we have to always stick to straight-forward names. "Blue-ringed octopus", no quarrel there at all.
@@yueshijoorya601 then the octopus gets drawn as a blue ring with 8 arms.
Still pretty stupid, considering turtles literally live in these lands up to this day.
@@yueshijoorya601 And then someone summons the ornithologists who name a bird either "black headed yellowbill" or "satanic nightjar"
@@aminadabbrulle8252 in which country for example? I live in Germany and I never saw a turtle
Monk 1 : "I need to draw a whale for this book, what do they look like?"
Monk 2: "I know a guy who knows a guy who talked to an old drunken one-eyed sailor who saw one from a mile away when he was young"
And his name is
Liyey
Exactly. I bet that one-eyed guy also claims to have had 'relations' with a mermaid.
@@tigermunky and found a treasure but it went overboard in a storm
@@DOKZAONE Shit! That always happens! And that treasure had all the booty you could ever dream of. It's happened to me at least 4 times now.
@@tigermunky and he won so much money and then gave it to poor
2000 years later: Hilariously Inaccurate 21st Century Art of Aliens.
“Look that big head in a tiny body, what those people were thinking lmao”
This guys predicted
"Bogos binted? And what the hell is that supposed to mean exactly?"
Ancient aliens:As you see is this stone circle made from aliens?
i would say 10years or something....
The artist just straight up drew shields on the sea turtles back. Someone also told the monk about a chameleon and the monk was like “cool camel lion”
Turtle in german literally means "shild toad" (Schildkröte)
@@hailgiratinathetruegod7564
true
On an old Saxon book is written as "Came a Lion"
@@hailgiratinathetruegod7564 Same in dutch "schildpad" Shield-toad
Giraffes were known as camelopard for their long-necked loping gait and their spots.
The cameleon at 6:02 is beautifully drawn. Of all the animals in the video it's the only one that actually looks as if it's alive. The others mainly look like examples of bad taxidermy.
It looks like a pokemon
Whale: big fish
Dolphin: smaller fish
Turtle: shield fish
Crocodile: fish with legs
Ironically, Darwin argued we all evolved from fish.
@@iliya3110 how about gumball?
@@iliya3110 damn you Tiktaalik grandpa
The german name of turtle is ,Schildkröte' .Der Schild means shield, and Kröte is an annimal related to frogs.
A simpler time
These all look fun, but i dare you to make an accurate drawing of an animal you have never seen just going by the half remembered, exaggerated descriptions of uninterested sailors and merchants.
Yeah i myself thought that descriping elephants to someone who never seen them before is like trying to descrip colors to a Blind man.
Challenge accepted.
I get animals like elephants, but it that hard to imagine tiger as big cat? Cats are really common in Europe.
@@ExtremeMadnessX how knows maybe the person who descriped it to the artist didn't see it very will becuse if he did he'll die they Either see it from far away or just see it for half a second or doesn't remember Specifically how it looked the just Remember the shape also we call them artists but they aren't artist at all they are just monks
Would be such a good concept for an art channel
Funny: Turtle is "Schildkröte" in German, the words mean "shield" and "toad". The first picture of a turtle looks exactly like a toad with an shield on it.
Same in Swedish: sköldpadda - sköld (shield) and padda (toad). :)
shield toad
Same in Dutch too: Schildpad (Schild=Shield, Pad=Toad)
Well, it's called "żółw" in polish and the word has got no meaning and only funny letters
4:39 that Pepe smirk
I find the scorpion particularly hilarious. Surely all they had to do was say "you know crabs? Draw one of them but skinny and long, with a tail"
Were crabs mainstream food ? If not I don’t think they would know what crabs are unless they live near them
Edit: I changed we’re to were, stupid autocorrect
@@justinw8716 That's actually something I hadn't considered. If they lived inland then yeah, they probably wouldn't have any idea.
Rivers have crayfish
Or spiders!! there's spiders EVERYWHERE, europe included! Just say "draw a spider with satan's pointed tail" and you have a scorpion!
Scorpions have pinchers they don't look like spiders@@Pinkstarclan
Actually, elephants were used in wars, and they DID at times have harnesses with literal wooden fortifications on their backs that would have several archers be behind parapets, like in castles. Saying "they had castles on their backs" is therefore not completely inaccurate either, it were just wooden ones.
So they're mighty after all
Those stories were probably brought back after seeing things like the Islamic wars
Remember the giant elephants from lotr that are basically just giant versions of those, thats pretty cool
@@Singleraxis Hannibal legit just pulled a LOTR tier fantasy battlw during the Battle of The Alps to a point that it spawned fantastical description of Elephants lmao
@@Singleraxis whether or not they can carry castles on their back, they’re still mighty, those things are tanks.
Medieval man: "Look at this cool pokemon I drew."
Modern man, hundreds of years later: "lmao that's not a turtle, idiot"
More like judgmental modern garbage.
You lost me when you put "cool" and "pokemon" in the same sentence. Drop in the medieval time reference and I'm out. My vagina just turned into the Sahara desert. 🙈
😂🤣😂🤣
@@YouDontKnowAsMuchAsYouThinkUDoStfu
@@YouDontKnowAsMuchAsYouThinkUDoI’m willing to bet money that you’re replying to a minor right now
@@wystrix439 why is that important?
This makes mythical animals make a bit more sense
Remember mythical animals were thought to exist with these “different” depictions
Actually, that's a good point.
Cyclops probably came from elephant skulls and gryphons probably came from triceratops skulls.
@@Shythalia or just a one-eyed blind guy and some bird
The myth of dragons came from dinosaur fossils.
Any Exotic Animal on Earth : _(Exists)_
Medieval Artists : _"Ayo, what the dog doin ???"_
Imagine if these medieval artists had made their way to Australia. Animals like the platypus were still baffling Europeans as late as the Victorian era.
animals like the playpus are still baffling me today
like
they just look like something that should not exist
its a cross between an otter, a beaver, and a duck who got in an unfortunate car accident
or an otter who got a sock stuck on his nose
and dont even get me started on some of the baby platypus images
@@enderlordex9396
and a secret agent
@@sparkyboi4387 he's got more than just mad skills
@@enderlordex9396 Don’t forget that they can inject venom out of a small quill above each of their front flippers.
@@AlmostAnimixers And that they sweat milk out of their armpits because screw nipples lmfao
The elephant carrying a castle is actually technically true; they're called howdahs and they're essentially elaborate saddles of the elephants
Very true was a siege tatic
@@sapphiredawn4321 Right! And If I'm not mistaken Ancient Chinese actually implemented using War Elephants in some of their wars
@@chargemankent i know india did not sure on china though
@@sapphiredawn4321 India was using war elephants way too often
But China is different, since there are no wild elephant in China they have to import elephant from South and South East Asia...
That is why I say they implemented War Elephants in *Some* of their wars
One Ancient China war that I know of using War Elephants is the Qin's War of Unification
More specifically the Hangu Pass War
Lord of the Rings moment.
The description: "it's like a crab but with a long pointy tail"
The artist: "fur it is then!"
😩🤣😂🤣🤣🤣
Like they know ehat a crab is, if you didnt live near the sea or are a trader you would have never saw the sea
@@ConfyLizard like a large spider with a tail like a chain that ends in a spike
@@pegasBaO23 yea that would have did the job.Wonder ehat description did they actualy get to mess up this bad
Sounds like a lobster.
Imagine being shown only images like these, and hearing the stories that come with them for your whole life only to see and learn about the actual animals. That would either be the scariest experience, or the most relieving experience.
Don't forget one of the earliest shitpost in history. killer rabbit wielding lance and shield riding snail with human head.
That's fucked up hahaha
Huh
lol a shitpost
I like how it took humanity this long
We’ve been trolling for so long we didn’t even know we were trolling
Better throw the Holy hand grenade of Antioch, just in case.
I’m convinced the mythical dragon was just a wrong, very wrong depiction of a hummingbird.
Hahah
Dragon in Asia is based on river snakes tho
Or a jumbled pile of dinosaur fossils someone dug up.
@@rfresa or live ones that just died out. Let's face it, if an asteroid killed them all it would have killed every thing else. Humans however are good at killing things off.
@@calebfreeman8284 The bones would be fresh but they’re not
"Ok man I want you to paint an animal for me"
"Sure"
"It's a lizard about the length of my hand, has two big eyes that point in two directions, a long tongue, hands and feet that look like oven mitts and long tail that curls like a spiral."
*draws horse* done!
"Got it... what's a lizard?"
Chameleon
in medival world all animal that exist is a horse, a fish or a dog and some small birds
-Say, does he wear boot and a round mounting chair?
-Who said is a he?
-So is a she?
-That is a good question
@@danholmesfilm just like a horse, but better
I laughed so hard at the sea turtle at 4:40. A smug fish with shields on his back!
He cute
okay, but be fair: your cousin goes “yeah, saw an animal in the woods. had these weird ears, rat like tail, kinda armored lookin, long pig snout, stubby legs,” and then try to draw an armadillo without ever seeing one and using only this description
But can't they draw it?
@@_Dr_Fate The people describing the animals were most likely terrible at drawing themselves, or too busy to draw. Hence the artists.
Accidentally draws a pig with armour
And they're a cloistered monk who has limited artistic training.
I thought of that or an aardvark.
"Bees are the smallest of birds. They are born from the bodies of oxen, or from (...corruption...) the decaying flesh of slaughtered calves; worms form in the flesh and then turn into bees. Bees live in community, choose the most noble among them as king, have wars, and make honey. Their laws are based on custom, but the king does not enforce the law; rather the lawbreakers punish themselves by stinging themselves to death."
Yep those guys had it all figured out :)
Medieval Bestiaries are fun to read
Thanks for sharing this. Really interesting
No wonder they pict a crocs like a flying horse.
Where did you find this and where can I read it?
Well iv never seen a mummy bee give birth to a baby bee so Im saying this could be legit. I mean where do bees come from?
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 Do i really need to give you the "Flowers and the Bees" Talk? :)
Imagine a monk deciding to travel the world and see it for himself and then running back years later shouting "OH GOD WE WERE SO WRONG"
I honestly wished they did.
My eyes were annoyed.
@@dandelionmosssycamore8218 Well, if you can find their unmarked graves, I'm sure they'd be happy to listen to you critique their art.
This actually did start happening in the middle ages--there are written accounts of monks who ventured into central Asia in search of some of the animals described by Herodotus in his works. The monks wrote back, "wow, Herodotus was an idiot, I haven't found any gigantic gold-mining ants yet, or one-footed umbrella-people."
Especially since it would take them years to travel the distance we can go in hours today.
They wouldn't make it back, because they tried that mirror thing with the tiger ;P
description: the turtle is a shielded animal
painter: so it's carrying shields like a knight would, got it.
Jokes aside, it would be really cool to see a videogame where these inaccurate depictions are actual, living monsters. Imagine fighting off a pack of those "hyenas" or a bunch of sword wielding rabbits. I'd buy that in a heartbeat 😂.
My first thought. A whole alternate history where all the legends are true
Or a movie
I was thinking they'd make good pokémon.
Not gonna lie, it portray how common object if it being described to those who don't know.
Try to explain a three piece suit in medieval time is interesting. It look like what noble wear, yet felt lacking the ornament.
@@rizkyanandita8227
Not really. Medieval nobles tended to wear tunics, tights and flowy clothing. Completely different than a modern three piece suit which has both pants and a buttoned up shirt. The jacket or coat would be a bit more similar to a cloak but then again it wouldn't be flowy and instead form fitting and would have the buttons all the way down. In the Renaissance you'd find a bit more similarity due to the use of collars but not quite yet for buttoned up clothing, that has to wait for the Enlightenment.
Animals that existed in medieval Europe:
- Dog
- Fish
- Horse
- Cat
- Bird
Wolves reindeers bears birds
And rats. Lots and lots of rats.
Dragons
Goat, pig, chicken (and other birds)
Compared to every other continent Europe is lacking in dangerous wildlife.
Sometimes it is possible to trace these misunderstandings by looking at the text or thinking how someone might try to describe the thing. For instance, there is the "vegetable lamb" which seems to be a misunderstanding of cotton:
European guy: "Hey, neat fabric! It's so cool and breathable! What's it made of?"
Syrian merchant: "Well...You know how you make clothes out of sheep wool? Well, there's this plant that has like clumps of wool growing off it."
European guy goes home, relates this story to local monk. Resulting picture: Tree with sheep growing on it.
Their was the description of Antelope. No hunter can approach it (they meant Antelope always heard the hunters coming) they have horns like saws. No one could get close enough so the ribbed horns looked like curved saws they used to make, Antelope used these saw horns to cut down trees, the research’s saw the Antelope scratch it’s horn on some thin tree and knock them down and assumed that’s what the horns are meant for.
There is an idiom in China called "hearsay", which refers to spreading what one hears on the road seriously and without reason; Metaphorically unfounded rumors
The German word for "cotton" is "baumwolle": tree wool.
something to keep in mind about these illustrations is that in the medieval era (at least in Europe), the religious institutions and scholarly institutions were generally one and the same. any study of animals was done through a Christian-centric lens and assumed that every animal put on Earth was done so to represent a moral lesson, which is probably why stories like the pelicans eating each other became prevalent. another one is about the antelope, which medieval writers described as having two horns not because of any evolutionary advantages like mating displays or defense from predators, but because the horns represented cutting one's self away from sin and vice. as hilarious as these old illustrations are, i think they can make for fascinating studies of the cultural mindset they were drawn under.
Reminds me of the restoration of the painting featuring the lamb of God, people disliked how the lamb’s face became uncanny humanoid after the restoration, but as it turned out, the generic lamb face the painting had prior the restoration was really just an overpaint done some time ago, while the creepy lamb was actually the original, and it’s human features were done on purpose, the artist was capable of drawing animals super well, and it’s supposed to be something divine and overworldly, not just some random sheep
I feel like the people drew chameleons as all of these different creatures because they thought they were like shapeshifters, misunderstanding accounts of them changing their appearance to blend into their environment.
69 pog
I had a similar thought. I wonder if it's actually true, though. makes sense.
And the word "leon" at the end that seems to spell "lion"
Brilliant, didn’t think about that
I think you could be right, I never thought about that! For me, the fact that they are often portrayed as hairy/fluffy was - in my opinion - because of their name "chameleon", which in the ears of a medieval monk would probably have sounded like "a mix of a camel and a lion", leading to these representations with mammal paws an furry bodies.
- So it's a tiny scaled reptile, green and with big eyes.
- A little cat, understood.
if you consider the first source to be a (likely drunken) sailor, who told a merchant, who told a maid, who told the artist... and likely none of them were good at taxonomy... i can happen :P
I bet if we now play at describing a teddy bear without saying its a teddy bear (and only its appearance, not materials), then hand a second person the description and ask them to write them back 1 hour later and a third person has to draw it without knowing its a teddy bear and i would bet it can go medieval
@@vittocrazi u got a point
“The dolphin resembles a slightly goofy looking fish”- well how would YOU describe a dolphin sir???? How would YOU????
Here is my try:
It was an aquatic animal that jumped in and out of water. Instead of the scaly skin and the veiled fins which characterizes the familiar fish; it had a smooth, blue skin and stunted front limbs which jutted out of its side. In addition, it had a dorsal fin much like that of a sharks and a tail whose wings were to the sides. The animal had no hind limbs. When it comes to its head, Its side facing eyes were beady and dark. Its muzzle was elongated forwards and housed many small teeth. The peculiar curves around its facial structure gave it a look of carefree happiness.
grey banana...?
@@bahayesilyurt9433 @M D yes to both of these
What is a shark? What is a banana?
Big happy fish
0:35 OMG, it's Sanic The Elephant!
Sailor: I saw a big fish.
Painter: He said fish, then it must have scales.
And legs
@@susone8353 and human teeth
They didn't know about mammals and cetaceans.
@@dot5687 there are some fish with human-like teeth
@@aninuji8882 , Pacu fish?
*Elephant?* Yeas, long-nosed horse
*Chameleon?* Yess, color-changing horse
*Turtle?* Oh yes, double-shield horse
*Giraffe?* Hum yes, long-neck horse
*Hippopotamus?* Right, water horse
*Scorpion?* Nice, lots-of-feet-a-horse
*Whale?* Got it, water horse 2
Equinization - the tendency of medieval art to gravitate towards a horse-like body plan
When the medieval artist didn't have much to go by, the horse was the default body shape.
Yeah, when you see horses all the time then other legged animals cant be that different from a horse right?
Hippopotamus does mean "river horse." Looks like another case of artists going the literal route.
@JZ's Best Friend Imagine a thousand years from now there'll be a youtube video titled: hilariously inaccurate depictions of aliens in silicone-age art.
The German word for turtle literally means "shield toad". Given that name and describing it having aquatic features, the depiction at 4:39 is actually not that far off.
i love how it just has actual shields as its shell, judging by the shape
the designer's like "I followed the brief, those were your requirements. There's the shield. Why does it have a crest on it? Because shield? dude you're confusing me. What do you actually mean? Whyyyyy did I take this commission???"
And the hippo is the horse of the nil in german
@@alexbrown8900 which is funny, because the name originated from when people first discovered it. They found them in the Nil, but now they don't live the anymore, but people still think that they do because of the name.
The peculiar thing is that even older Neolithic cave paintings are actually quite good and accurate. We can clearly see deer-like creatures and mammoths in those paintings (at least accurate comparing to real Mammoth Arctic findings).
it's because they were drawing the animals they actually SAW every day. These people drew from the end of the chain of bad descriptions passed from one drunken sailor to another
The first crocodile image actually makes a little sense. I could see a medieval person describing a crocodile as a river dragon, which would explain the wings. The beak could be because a crocodile has a pointed snout.
Wouldnt a dog snout be a better example? Just longer
True. I still think of crocodiles as basically real world water dragons, especially considering how much such creatures ended up inspiring a lot of ancient and medieval dragon myths and art
Oh man, now I wish we had medieval drawings of Australian animals. Just imagine how much weirder they would be.
it would just look like a grim reaper fashion show
-Death with wings
-Death with 8 legs
-Death, but pretending to be a koala
Its tall stands on two legs and can jump and has a pouch which it carries babies in on its stomach and they have arms that allow them to slap eachother
something tells me kangaroos would be depicted as "two-headed" creatures because of the baby in the pouch and we'd end up with a CatDog style monstrosity
By Australian animals... what animal name is it?
you look like Gordon Freeman lol
5:22 "Finally, at least this one looks more like what a crocodile would"
Narrator: "It's a scorpion".
That looks nothing like a crocodile
@@U87-z2w Fr, they should inform the artist.
@@U87-z2w like anything looks even remotely like anything in this video😭
"It has a tail that can hold on to branches, it can change it's colour, move it's eyes independently and eject it's tongue."
"Got cha, cyclops horse."
Us trying to get the dinosaurs right.
Humans in the future: Well, they tried.
But future humans (hopefully) won’t have seen live dinosaurs either…
@@bradsmith20 Take the genome and make a bird create an egg with the dinosaur genome.
The Smithsonian had a dinosaur skeleton on display for over a century and it had the wrong head on it.... I'm not sure which one it was.
@@bradsmith20 a few scientists claim t rex’s had feathers & resembled a colorful murderous modern day chicken
@@olasdorosdiliusimilius2174 I’m a gnome and you’re been gnomed!
It's like telling someone to draw a Pokemon they've never heard before.
That's a great idea though, asking artists to draw from the description of a pokémon without telling the name of the pokémon
@@mrsweetkandy7673 Ever watched drawfee?
@@CallmeOzymandias The Spheal...by god
@@BJGvideos 🤣 Which one was that? I don't remember.
@@CallmeOzymandias Julia drew a creepy guy instead of a round seal, because she interpreted the name as "skeevy feel"
“Let’s paint some animals”
“But we know nothing about them... we don’t even know what they look like”
“Well we can guess”
I've never seen a duck
But it sounds like it could be some sort of fish like cat dog
That's what happened when people in the past found dinosaurs remains did and even nowadays, we could at best know that they have scales and in certain species, feathers, but beyond that, their looks and their muscle texture were only reverse constructed using existing knowledge on how bones and muscles works. As to how certain species flies or swim in a way that is not found in present day animals became a game of fact-based guessing. Beyond that, their colour would remain a mystery forever - I mean for example, how would you know a Zebra or a tiger or leopard have strips and dots if all you found were some bones?
We do this so much with fossils.
It's real art.
@@stormmeansnowork There are some feathered dinosaurs with melanosomes preserved within their fossils, which actually determine what color they were in life. Granted, this is a rare kind of perseveration, and a more recently-discovered one too.
I've read that ostriches and emus do indeed eat small metal objects, seemingly without any harm to themselves, as witnessed by many owners. An autopsy of a captive ostrich in the 1930s shows that its stomach contained "copper coins, metal tacks, staples, hooks, and a four-inch nail".
The "scorpion" at 5:32 looks exactly like the various "free-tailed" bats of Europe, at least its lower half, right down to the down the colour and finely clawed toes. I would say it is drawn from life. The artist probably knew bats because they likely lived in the towers of the monastery The artist has shown the bat as it looks clinging to a hard surface. He has removed the bats folded-up wings, changed the face and decorated the spine.
I guess medieval artists forgot to look at ancient Roman mosaics: Their animal depictions are very accurate. After all, they imported all sorts of beasts for their arenas.
Most likely they didn't have access to such things at all. They couldn't just "check a source" most of the time. This was before even the press, after all.
I had to look up for Roman mosaics, and I'm delighted. Those animals depictions are indeed quite accurate.
The Romans had mastered realism long before.
Take a look at early British attempts to copy Roman coins for another example. The copies are crude caricatures at best.
There wasn't google or reliable sources back then, so obviously a medieval artist wasn't able to draw an image of an animal accurately if it's from a different geographical region. Plus, medieval artists didn't obsess over realism and accuracy the same way ancient Roman or Renaissance artists do and prefered to use iconography.
Romans had access to those animals and where also a unified nation with a lot more resources and more accessible information
A small correction- hippopotamus is a Greek word, not a Latin one.
@SEAN YAO Yes but that doesn't mean it's the same language
@SEAN YAO Actually we were wrong, I searched it up and Greek is older than Latin.
@SEAN YAO ancient greek existed at the same time as latin
Well hippopotamus is a Latin word derived from the ancient Greek word hippopótamos (aka ἱπποπόταμοςaka, aka hippos potamios, aka riverine horse), at least according to Merriam-Webster and wiktionary
@SEAN YAO Greek languages and Romance languages, like Latin, make up separate branches in the Indo-European family tree.
How did they mess up a tiger? All you had to describe was "big orange cat with black stripes."
So Garfield?
@@samuraijackoff5354 exactly.
What about a giraffe? Just say It's a "skinny cow with a long neck, short horns and black pints"
well they made the ostrich look like a standard bird 😂
Or crocodile, giant armoured lizard with a long narrow snout, lives in rivers.
Edit: forget the armour it seems to confuse people for some reason
1. elephants are often used in certain cultures to hold "buildings" with people in them, like little carriages
2. hyenas are scavengers and therefore it makes sense for them to be "eating the dead"
Jackals definitely do scavenge graveyards, so the hyena might be getting conflated with the sort-of-similar jackal.
3. The pelicans aren't eating each other, it's not a cannibal medieval legend but Christian symbolism. According to western Christianism, pelican parents were the embodiment of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for humanity. Pelican parents would wound themselves to feed their babies their own blood whenever there's no food and they are starving.
This video is full of bs. Their source is "trust me bro".
@@Shesvii And what are your source for such a claim ?
Yeah I really didn't get the whole "Oh look Elephant with a castle... SO STUPID" comment.
@@MrSafior the Pelican was a significant motif in mediaeval Christendom, look it up
5:31 "There's something about giving a scorpion a non-arachnid face which makes it look so fundamentally absurd."
The Scorpion King has left the chat.
I laughed so hard at this
I'm pretty sure the "castles" depicted on the elephant's backs are meant to represent Howdahs and the image of an Elephant and Castle is a stylized symbol of strength in medieval English art. I don't think medieval people thought elephants could carry a literal castle on their back.
Based on how their art is, it's hard to be sure. If you see consistent inaccuracies then it's hard to say that a few are out of context otherwise how do you justify the rest?
Medieval people lived in a Mad Max-esque world after the fall of Rome. These artists were literally going by word of mouth and I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought Elephants carried castles due to mistranslations of elephants carrying Howdah which is a carriage that elephants used to carry people with on their back.
@@Ebrill_Owen That was the dark ages, which historians place before the medieval ages.
i think it an confussion about the indians using elephants as war machine a moving fortress
@@31oannamphong66 Indians did put Towers on elephants. But wooden ones. Maybe some trader told them about elephants with towers and they were like "woah, out of stone and stuff? Thats rad lets draw it."
I love these medieval animal illustrations, they're literally so creative and funny. I went to an art museum the other day that had a few medieval paintings and a lot of the animal depictions literally had me laugh out loud.
When you think about it tho it is immensely interesting to think about how you would imagine some exotic animals based purely on explanations that might even just reach you second, or third hand with months, or even years between the sighting and the description. Rly something that we don't get to experience anymore, now that any information and imagery is just a few finger swipes away.
Most people back then never traveled outside their regions. Let alone their villages and towns.
Как художник мне это интересно 😮😮😮😮❤
You didn't even mention how rhinos were probably responsible for unicorns.
One rhino boinks a horse and a thousand years later you are still shaming them. Stop blaming them
Didn't Narwhal horns get sold as "unicorn horns" in Europe?
@@CSLucasEpic I think so. Though as there was a known land animal with 4 legs and a face horn, it would be easy to convince people who would have no way to know any better. They didn't have photography or any proper first person sketches. That's a big reason naturalists were also sketch artists later on who spent time drawing animals extremely accurately
@@CSLucasEpic I think its probably medieval a scammer or the rhino species went extinct.
And dinosaurs are for dragons
They probably saw another dinos bones next to one and assumed it had wings
Also they like to give animals super powers so the fire breath comes from there
Dragons in the east are more peaceful then the west because of difference in culture there they are represented by water rather then fire which could mean that the first dinosaur found may be near a river and a serpent which resembles there shape in asian myths which is like a giant snake a titanaboa(the worlds largest snake fossil) may be the one found
As inaccurate as these depictions are, they're a goldmine of inspiration for creature designs!
Most of them would be terrifying to encounter in a survival open world game
@@zbady4595 Possible Ark mod(s)? Medieval Times in Ark
Right? I'm stealing the concept of Elephantish creatures carrying castles
@@juanandrescastillofuenmayo6843
Wouldn't be stealing if it's an idea available to the general public.
@@mdalsted yeah, it's more like " using"
Stealing make you sounds like, you know, someone with bad reputation
Plot twist: All those medieval drawings were accurate drawings of animals now extinct
That could be.
We’ve been lied to so much, who really knows the truth?
*illuminati confirmed sfx
@@nerospapa8814 ah yes amongus before amongus existed good times
@@lifeispoetry8349 Well because there couldn't be any reasons I could think of for why they'd hide it and because a random person would probably eventually find out one way or another
Thank you people think they were retarted back then
ohh look a Horse!!
Medieval artist: "Me apologies sir that's a chameleon"
Some Asian war elephants actually had “towers” or rather, carriages on its back. I’m pretty sure when the artists heard about it, it was described to them as a tower by a storyteller, veteran, who actually seen it.
The Europeans then drew the stone towers they were familiar with instead of the specialised wood and wicker ones that were used.
@@ckl9390right
Just google Carthaginian War Elefant. They came with Hannibal across the Alpes.
The japanese interpretations of giraffes where also quite interesting, resulting in the mystic being Kirin (also the name for giraffe) which often looks like a cross between a dragon and horse
Is there a video like this for Japanese art?
The origin of this went back to China in the 15th century when admiral Zheng He who was ordered to explore the world for treasures, brought back a giraffe from his voyage to the imperial court, causing huge interest and imagination among the people. People thought this mysterious animal is the mythical Qilin, a dragon, horse, lion hybrid with scales and fur.
Giraffes being called Qilin followed its way to Japan, which was pronounced Kirin. While Japan still calls giraffes Kirin, China has called them "Changjinglu", "long necked deer" for a long time.
@@GuyWithAnAmazingHat Asian art is still questionable, just look at the weird eyes they make in anime.
@@Tattyelfa17 What does that has to do with this thread?
And do you know that the origins of anime eyes was Disney's Bambi? Osamu Tezuka the creator of Astro Boy was a big fan of Disney animations and drew Astro Boy with the eyes of Bambi, the style then developed from there.
And now it has even gone full circle, Disney's 3D animation films have anime like eyes.
Don't insult things you are clueless about, it only makes you look bad.
@@GuyWithAnAmazingHat My God, I'm not an otaku. I'm just saying his eyes look like stained glass, calm down a bit.
I think this is genuinely where the myth of the unicorn came from. You describe a rhinoceros as a quadruped with a horn in the middle of its face, someone's going to draw a horse with a horn.
And then somebody sees a mutated roe with one horn in the middle of their head and bam, confirmation.
Actually, the myth of the unicorn comes from the one horned goat phenomenon. A one horned goat is a genetic mutation that occurs amongst certain species of goats and was once thought to be a symbol of divinity. For some reason, the one horned goat over time became a one horned horse.
The myth of the unicorn (as well as the dragon) is thousands of years older than the medieval period and spans several continents. There is no way to know exactly where it came from or how it got started, since it goes back before any written history we have access to.
"According to historical records, all non-human animals were either big fish, crows, or (most frequently) dogs. It is, as of now, unknown how these animals were able to so rapidly evolve into their current forms"
- historians
The Questing Beast from Arthurian legend was described as having: the head and neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion and the feet of a hart. The legend is actually describing a giraffe, so giraffes are canon in Camelot.
Another's Democrats propaganda LMAO
Wow underrated comment
I saw a video by The History Guy saying that back in the 1400’s someone gave two giraffes to the Emperor of China, and he claimed it was a mythical dragon! From some half ass description of the dragon that he warped to his advantage.
Except the Questing Beast also has a pack of dogs barking and growling in its stomach, so... :/
@@JettMoonwing Pregnant giraffe with diarrhea?
So those "knights" didn't just attacked and killed animal that would not attack them but that animal was also sick!!
As an artist I'm just impressed and curious of how these existed, my logic is that since art was a luxury back then, ppl who drew these mostly got their info by someone's description, like
"there's this big ass animal with two spears and a strange rope-hand in it's face, massive size like a house, so strong 4 men died trying to capture it"
"So hear me out there's this creature in the sea, they're so big I bet they can eat entire ships, it can jump out of the water too"
"I saw a weird deer that had a very long neck and vibrant colors, it ate only from they tallest trees"
amazing
There is an idiom in China called "hearsay"(道听途说), which refers to spreading what one hears on the road seriously and without reason; Metaphorically unfounded rumors
I’m crying in agony because of these art depictions.
The thing is from these pictures I can understand where the misunderstanding comes from. Try describing what you’re seeing with what you know to people who have never seen it and watch what they draw from your description. The big nose of the Hippo drawn long instead of fat, the giant teeth of a Hippo drawn as tusks. Big ears of elephants also drawn long instead of fat, the castle on it’s back was a special kind of tent- saddle thing (I forget what it’s called) but they exist in Africa and parts of India. You look at it and you can generally understand what their description of it probably was and the misunderstandings that came from the description
Yeah, LMAO
Indeed
And I get the whole explanation of everyone had no comparison back then of just a handful of animals but it doesn’t explain other animal depictions like hyenas,which look exactly like a hunchback dog,and the fact that many of these scholars definitely had the resources to go get some of these animals
It gets so bad that you wonder if either they were joking or were truly that ignorant
And still I understand what life was like but they were still so much to draw from even in the simple lives of a peasant to describe these animals as to not look like a buffoon (ignoring the premise that people over exaggerate things to become the next big shot)
@@spacetacos7574 A lot of the times they are not trying to be accurate. It's just a certain style. The scream painting, Anxiety, Portrait of a woman, they all feature humans but are not accurate representations. Medieval depictions of many things were highly stylized and not meant to be accurate representations.
@@nipoone6109 but many of some of those paintings were by actual scholars who had to do things “accurately” and by all means had the resources to do so yet end up with that
I love how a common misconception was that Ostritches could eat and digest anything, including metal. Some dude probably saw some ostritch gremlin eating coins or rocks for no reason and was like "Ayo how it do that" and in reality ostritches are just really stupid.
Some birds eat rocks and gravel to help them digest food. It probably stems from that
In the olden days, people believed Unicorns were more likely to exist than Black Swans.
Bruh
Isn't unicorn supposed to be rhinoceros?
@@noahanders7605 Yes.
Both exist tho
@@trent_king Since when do unicorns exist? It's highly likely it was just an incorrectly drawn rhinoceros, which later adapted itself as a different species.
Despite all the inaccuracies, you gotta admit that those people can make some good drawings. And also I'd love to see a fantasy book or game with those designs
Good drawings lol?? They are so 2 dimensional they look like a toddler drew them. Not that fantasy art isn’t cool though
They were the Marvel Comics and DC Comics of Middle Ages.
The designs are not that outlandish but you may want to check out the game Inkulinati
It's still in early acess but it does the medieval art aesthetic in an interesting way
i'd LOVE to base a creature off the scorpion ones
@@andrewparker318These are for the most part way harder to make than you would think
I always try to imagine what it was like to live in a world that was largely undiscovered. Seeing one of these things for the first time must have been terrifying, can't blame the artists for not sticking around to get all the details
True good point lol
Yeah they didn’t what kind of capabilities these animals had, for all they knew these animals could have spit fire or shoot lightning bolts.
This highlights something I think a lot of people don't think about, the mindset of people from any point in time far from our own.
They didn't have internet, tv, and hardly any books even. Most people couldnt read anyway. Imagine if your entire world was your little village, and traveling 1 or 2 towns over to visit a relative was a month long adventure. Imagine the amount of speculation and misinformation. Even the well educated people like the ones who drew these pictures and wrote the books they were in were working with a first, second, maybe even third or more person's description of animals so different from what they know that this is the best their imagination can come up with, the best they can comprehend.
I think it's just super interesting to try to imagine the mindset of people from centuries ago. It's really hard to put yourself in their shoes, but I think its vital to understand their lives through their stories and art. A lot of times I think our modern way of thinking takes us a completely different direction than was intended. I think that even applies to understanding things like how the pyramids were built and all those things we today think would have been so impossible it must be aliens, lol. We obviously do not understand people from the past in many ways.
Lots of the images of Pelicans you showed actually play into a distinctly different Medieval myth; if you look closely, many of the images show the mother inflicting a wound on herself, which the children drink the blood of. This was supposedly how the young fed - almost like a grim alternative to breastfeeding. This selfless, blood-related sacrifice was a big draw for the heavily-christian scholars of medieval Europe at the time, who linked it with Christ's sacrifice, giving the bird a big boost in popularity amongst the clergy and upper nobility, even if the "pelican" in question is a far cry from what any kind of real pelican looks like. Interestingly, this lead to the pelican having its own unique status in European heraldry, being the only animal that can be displayed "in its piety" - feeding its young with its own blood. I'm not sure if any crests survive with a pelican in its piety; if someone knows of one, do let me know.
Syldavian crest had pelicans on it
Pellicano di Gioiosa's family crest featured a Pelican feeding her blood to her child. Pellicano di Gioiosa was a noble family from the city of Gioiosa Jonica (Calabria, Italy)
@@davidtogi5878 Same thing occurred to me! The only place I know, albeit fictional, that had pelicans in the crest and coat of arms.
The state flag of Louisiana has a pelican feeding its chicks with its blood. It’s mildly frustrating when they censor or forget the blood drops because it kinda defeats the point.
I guess if you view a pelican from a distance feeding it chicks where like many bird it regurgitates food it this case into the bill pouch it would look like the chicks are eating its blood.
Funnily enough this is how we got a lot of our most famous mythical creatures through the same long-distance telephone game that is history- the Giraffe is turned into the Questing Beast, Rhino turned into the Unicorn, Tiger to Manticore, King Cobra to Basilisk, etc
Plot twist: the artists were actually dead-on with their depictipns, but God just decided to turn RTX on one day
your profile...;.......... , i can't.
Hello... Pablo.
Chris-chan lookin ass
@@EastlakeRasta7 yeah , I've been seeing that name everywhere, what about it ?
@@kirubaks9431 apparently he rape his ma 🤷🏾♂️ which did happen 🤷🏾♂️
1:54 Rest easy, hyenas only drag away LIVING humans in the dead of night.
Honestly I wish I had the confidence of these artists with my own art
Same
“Voila a scorpion!”
(Horrific mammal looking creature with multiple legs and weird tail)
Art
Remember in the name of modern art someone is selling "plain white" painting.
I feel like if I traveled back in time and started drawing foreign creatures realistically for British people I would feel like an all powerful oracle with magical sight of far off lands… and then I’d be burned to death and they’d look at my drawings and go “can you believe this crap? No way this is what a hippopotamus looks like. I mean, come on!”
😂I love everything about this comment
Maybe you can just describe more to them. Their drawing style is not the same as you 😂
You wouldnt even be able to communicate with them
Modern english is completely different from english back then, it sounds like a different language
I had the same thought
Burn the witch
Plot twist: this is how they actually looked, they’ve just evolved since then
Checkmate creationists
Plot twist: They're shapeshifters.
Or extinct because some Witcher
Fastest genes in the west
That'd be some extraordinarily fast evolution then
My favorite thing about Medieval mythical creatures and monstrous people is that you can tell that the one describing the creature was either exaggerating or saying something derogatory but the artist took all of it literally.
I applaud these attempts. I can't even imagine how I'd draw an elephant if I've never seen one before. Makes you wonder how the artists would've have felt if they ever did see an actual elephant, which I'm sure a very select few eventually did.
Hold up... You mean elephants exist in your galaxy too? Or was it just pictures of elephants from our planet that you saw?
"never seen an elephant"
*tried to draw elephant*
"successfully drawn a vacuum cleaner and I don't know what that is"
Have you seen an elephant Kenobi? I thought you're used to seeing Jawas and Tusken Raiders!
The name “hippopotamus” (“river horse”) is from Greek, not Latin.
just wanted to say the same... ἱπποπόταμος
@Varoon hippos and octopussys
@Varoon Hippopotamuses and octopuses. Not hippopotami and octopi, because, again, those names are not Latin. You could say octopodes for the Greek-style plural of octopus, but I never read or hear “octopodes” as the plural of octopus.
Wrong, in Greek it IS hippopotami
@@censusgary you absolutely can use those two Latinised versions as plural... they have been in use a long time already.
just because the words are originally Greek doesn't mean a thing; you might as well say there is no plural for '''envelope''' in English, just because it's a French word... when the obvious and correct answer is 'envelopes' 🤷🏻♂️
....that's be stupid.... don't be stupid
The oddly shaped shell could very likely represent a shield. In German turtles are called "Schildkröten" which literally translates to shield-toads.
That is awesome
Schildklöte*
everything sounds funnier in German
@@WurstHans666 no it is Schildkröte
@@hailgiratinathetruegod7564 Ach, gib a ruh du Trommelstock
These designs would be awesome if rendered and used for some type of fictional media.
I could even see a medieval cartoon about an explorer going to the new world, and they use only depictions from these types of art so that even the modern audience can relate to the feeling of discovering something new. Then in the credits they could show these 2D versions.
"Ayo dude, you'll not gonna believe what I've seen"
"you're trippin"
Medieval times must be fun
Hearing legends of sea monsters and colour changing insects and birds twice the size of humans must be quite fascinating
The word "hippopotamus" meaning "river horse", is Greek, not Latin. "Hippos" = horse.
"Potamos" = river
I'm surprised there are not many comments on this. This is the first one I see, actually.
oh so chinese literally translate it into 河馬(heˊ maˇ), river＋horse
In German we call them Nilpferd or Flusspferd (nile horse or river horse, depending on their habitat).
Yep.....in Latin, the word “horse” is “equus.”
In indonesia, we call hippopotamus as "Kuda Nil". Kuda =Horse, Nil = the Nil river.
As a man living in Africa, I can confirm that most of this art is real
😂😂😂😂
ⓧ Doubt
The hubris monsters will never let you speak...their teachers and tv have rotted their brains
@@younkinjames8571 indeed.
Great music. Abbey is amazing at the spoons. Keep warming our hearts.
"dogs are the only animals in the world right?"
"Yes, big dogs, small dogs, dogs with shells, dogs with 10 legs, dogs with 2 legs, dogs with 15 feet long necks, dogs with 15 foot long tails, dogs in the ocean, dogs in the sky.... Basically, everything is dogs"
It does explain a lot about how animal companions are depicted in movies, especially family films. Doesn't matter what kind of animal it is. It's either mentally a human or mentally a dog.
BRUH LMAOOO- 💀💀💀
@@BonaparteBardithion great point that explains so much 🤣
One of mom's friend did this with her kid, because he was TERRIFIED of all animals for some reason, except dogs. So every single animal was a different type of dog.
If you had lived in a monestry for most of your life 500 years ago you might not have seen many exotic animals either.
“For some reason they draw the whale as a giant fish”
Puzzling , I wonder why they’d do that
We once assumed Whales and Dolphins are fish but the truth is that they have lungs made them mammals not fish anymore.
Bruh according to them every living thing that is on water must have some scales or have fish-like attributes. I mean we're talking about the same literal medieval artists that thinks scorpions looks like a fricking dog ffs.
@@malachitegreen2413
I know I’m js , it’s not exactly “puzzling” that ancient people drew a whale as a giant fish lol
Geez, truly a mystery.
@@thevisitor5861 I think these guys missed the point of your joke.
I think the myth of Pelicans eating one another comes from when they feed their young, the pelican has its head almost fully in the parents mouth eating out of her pouch.
They also occasionally eat each other. Pelicans are monsters not above cannibalism
And often what they’re feeding the baby is in fact the remains of a different species of baby bird. So they weren’t super far off.
In my country hippos are called Kudanil (Kuda=horse Nil=Nile river, means horse of Nile river). As a kid I believe it is a typical horse, just from different location. So I feel you, medieval artist.
1:38 when you fuck up a giraffe so bad you accidentally draw an alpaca even though your culture hasn't discovered alpacas yet
There's a theory Giraffes inspired the image of dragons. If you describe them with large bodies, long legs, jaguar pattern, snake like neck, horse like head and horns (Giraffes literally have "horns") then a medieval monk would draw a dragon. Historical animal science is really fascinating, especially how it relates to folklore!
Surprised there was no mention of its conflation with the Qilin in East Asia to the point that Japan straight up calls giraffes "Kirin".
Dragons are most likely the result up people digging up dinosaur bones and playing “put the bones together”.
@@CMatt007 No, dragons have a real life inspiration that are not bones. It’s the crocodile. Notice how the crocodile has a very serpentine body, lives in the river, and are extremely dangerous.
@@evanbao93 Right back at you! Crocodiles are living dinosaurs.
@@CMatt007 Well technically, crocodiles are close relatives of dinosaurs, not actual dinosaurs themselves.
Medieval art is fascinating, the paintings appear so mythical and peculiar, it's like looking at sorcery.
People collectively forgot how to draw for a thousand years.
@@MrCmon113 What
@@MrCmon113 uh no, their libraries and tools were looted by the Moors, Huns and Turks
4:49 Actually, the hedgehog-turtle does kinda resemble a real species called the Alligator Snapping Turtle pretty nicely.
A channel this small has no right to be this high quality. You deserve more views and subscribers.
Thank you!