https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/bonnacons * Home * Essays * Collections * Explore * Shop * Support PDR * About * Blog Search Search The Public Domain Review [ ][View All Results] The Public Domain Review The Public Domain Review PDRSupport PDR * Essays * Collections * Explore * Shop * About * Blog * * * * * Collections / Images Medieval Illustrations of Bonnacons [bonnacon-l] When it comes to self-defense, skunks and spitting cobras have nothing on the bonnacon. If threatened, it fled. While fleeing, it defecated. Violently. According to Pliny the Elder, the excrement voided the animal's body with such explosive force that it could hit targets more than a football pitch away. Contact with its dung was said to burn like a kind of fire, scorching hunting dogs and anyone not equipped with protective gear. (There is some uncertainty whether the weapon was liquid or gaseous, super-heated or acidic.) As with many mythical medieval creatures, the bonnacon was a composite: the head of a bull, the mane of a horse, and its horns were "bent inwards upon each other, as to be of no use for the purposes of combat", writes Pliny. First described by Aristotle (as a possibly distinct animal called the bonasus), the bonnacon was resurrected in medieval bestiaries due to the influence of Pliny's encyclopedic study of the ancient world. The Natural History locates the dungy bull in Paeonia -- roughly today's North Macedonia -- but later writers elaborated its ethology, rehoming it in Asia. The twelfth-century Aberdeen Bestiary, for instance, expanded the projectile's devastation to an area of three acres and blamed the bonnacon's "convoluted" horns for its upset stomach: "the protection which its forehead denies this monster is furnished by its bowels." Other naturalists seemed to borrow the bonnacon's properties when observing novel fauna: Polish onagers, as studied in the thirteenth-century by Gervase of Tilbury, guzzled water when threatened, expelling a blinding "deluge from their nostrils"; Bartholomaeus Anglicus described a nameless Bohemian beast in the eleventh century that "shoots at hunters or dogs coming too close to it . . . this water horribly removes hair from and scalds whatever it touches." While many creatures in medieval bestiaries are laden with Christian symbolism, the bonnacon's appearance seems to be more like a gag -- for both its victims and audience. Browsing the image's gathered below, we might not know whether to laugh or duck. Hunters with ineffective shields gaze at the viewer, as if pleading for our assistance, while choking on stench. The bonnacon rarely seems in pain, more so disgusted at what he has been made to do, or taking visible pleasure in his pollution. Text by Hunter Dukes Published May 25, 2023 Medium * Images Theme * Animals & Beasts * Religion, Myth & Legend * Classical World Style * Manuscripts Epoch * Pre-16th Century Tags bestiary6mythical creatures4excrement2defecation2 Source Source Various, see source links Rights Underlying Work PD Worldwide Rights Digital Copy Rights Various Download Download Right click on image or see source for high-res Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. The Northumberland Bestiary, ca. 1260, Getty Museum, MS. 100, f. 26v - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Psalter of Isabelle of France, ca. 1308, Bayerische Staatbibliothek, Gall.16, f. 33r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. The Ashmole Bestiary, ca. 1225, Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, f. 18r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, ca. 1250, f. 16r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. British Library, Additional MS 11283, ca. 1175, f. 5v - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Harley Bestiary, British Library, Harley MS 4751, ca. 1200, f. 11r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Rochester Bestiary, British Library, Royal MS 12 F XIII, ca. 1230, f. 16r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. The Peterborough Psalter and Bestiary, ca. 12th century, Corpus Christi College Parker Library, MS 53, f. 192r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. The Worksop Bestiary, ca. 1185, Morgan Library, MS M.81, f. 37r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. The Hague, MMW, 10 B 25, ca. 1450, f. 8r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Bestiary of Ann Walsh, ca. 1425, Kongelige Bibliotek, GKS 1633 4deg, f. 10r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Trinity College Library (Cambridge), R.14.9, ca. 1150, f. 96r - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary, ca. 1500, Yale Center for British Art, f. 15v - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. Besancon, Bibliotheque municipale, Ms. 551, ca. 1274, f. 10v - Source Medieval image of bonnaconScroll through the whole page to download all images before printing. De Natura animalium, ca. 1285, Bibliotheque Municipale de Douai, Ms. 711, f. 8r - Source If You Liked This... Hand holding envelope Get Our Newsletter Our latest content, your inbox, every fortnight Privacy Policy More Info [ ][ ] HP[ ] [Subscribe] Become a Friend of the PDRPostcardsWe rely on our annual donors to keep the project alive. Perks include receiving twice-a-year our very special themed postcard packs and getting 10% off our prints.Find Out More Prints for Your Walls Explore our selection of fine art prints, all custom made to the highest standards, framed or unframed, and shipped to your door. 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