In the Labyrinth

Jousting Snails, Pugilistic Sword Fighting, and Medieval, Mythic Norwegians

So many wonderful moments have come into my feed and internet wanderings. Here's a few of them that of late I've been enjoying.  Above is a curious and captivating of two nude jousters -- male and female(?) -- on snails. This is from the Baldus de Ubaldis. Lectura super Institutionibus. 1480-1481. The best part of this image is that it remains an utter mystery as to what sort of allagorical or rhetorical meaning they were trying to express by placing jousting snails in the marginalia. (Most of the images are of armored knights  and this is the only one I've ever seen of two nude firghters moving v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y toward each other. I did some internet checking and found this hilarious scholarly debate about the jousting snails. (It reads like something from a Monty Python sketch) And here too -- another attempt at a scholarly debate/discussion what the hell were those monks thinking! 

 

And then there is this...fighting of a different sort. A short Slovakian film with Bordertown overtones, Punk and Pugilistic...with freaking long swords. Awesomeness. 

PUGIL from lukasterenson

 

Finally, from Punk to Heroic Epic. A new Norweigian film coming out in 2016 about the national myth of the Birkebeiners, a group of courageous men who set out in 1026 on a perilous journey to bring the infant heir to the Norwegian throne to safety in Trondheim -- pitting the themselves against the elements of cold, ice, and snow, and a lot of unpleasant factions seeking to murder the would-be-king.  (I think I shall have to wear a coat and mittens in the theater as I shiver just watching the trailer.)

 

A Moment With Sweeney Astray and The Stags

"Those unharnessed runners
from glen to glen!
Nobody tames
that royal blood,

each one aloof
on its rightful summit,
antlered, watchful.
Imagine them,

the stag of high Slieve Felim,
the stag of the steep Fews,
the stag of Duhallow, the stag of Orrey,
the fierce stag of Killarney..."

 

From Sweeney Astray a version from the Irish by Seamus Heaney

Art: Illustrated Manuscript: Gaston Phoebus, Le Livre de la chasse (Paris, ca. 1407)

Sunday Marginalia: The Four Winds

 

 

Konrad Kyeser, Bellifortis, Germany 15th century (Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 1360, fol. 4v)

In Praise of the Hedgehog

I have been madly in love with the recent offerings of hedgehog marginalia from Medieval Animal Data Network. These adorable looking creatures, are often rendered in the rich golden and red hues of fall, and harvesting grapes (despoiling the vineyards) using their spines like cocktail toothpicks. But most wonderful of all...a group of artists got together and created an animated film of the hedgehog in action, based on the art and narrated in Latin. Totally awesome. 

De Herinacio. On the Hedgehog from obrazki nunu on Vimeo.

 

 

 

 

 

Sources from Top to Bottom: Rochester Bestiary, England c. 1230; J. Paul Getty Trust, Unknown 
English, about 1250 - 1260; Book of Hours of Charlotte of Savoy created in Paris, France, in the 15th century. New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M. 1004, fol. 82v; Bestiary- Therouanne, ca 1270;  Latin bestiary Cambridge, 1320.

When Heroines Write Their Own Stories: More Art

Penelope Writes to Odysseus

I am still in awe of these amazing little Medieval illustrations of the classical Greek and Latin heroines of Ovid writing imaginary epistles. Ovid's work was translated into French by poet Octavien de Saint-Gelais, and it so delighted Louise of Savoy (1476-1531), mother of the future king Francis I of France, that she commissioned artist Robinet Testard to decorate a sumptuous manuscript of Ovid with these beautiful miniature portraits of heroines writing their own stories. Each one is so different ..caught in the unique drama of her life -- some beautiful, some rather violent. (And really...so many bad husbands and rotten boyfriends...) Here's a sample of some of my favorites ...but do, stop by La Folia Magazine and indulge in all the others.  And in some ways, all these heroines writing their own stories gives me fuel and words for my own characters who are impatient to write down their (mis)adventures.

Medea Writes to Jason

 

Ariadne Writes to Theseus 

 

Hypsipyle Writes to Jason (double rotter)