All sorts of strange animals bounded through medieval minds.
There were the blemmyes, beings who wore their faces on the front of their torsos, and the bonnacons, bullish beasts that fought their foes with fireballs of dung. There were sea monks and mermaids and mermen, not to mention the many species of sea serpents. And while barnacle birds fell from trees as if they were fruit, some mythical sheep were thought to be suspiciously strong thanks to the wriggling worms that sat inside their brains.
Of course, certain creatures appeared in the stories and artworks of the Middle Ages and Renaissance much more than others. In many ways, the dragon, the griffin, and the unicorn were the three mythical darlings of medieval Europe. They appeared again and again, in written words and in illustrations, but what did their appearances actually mean?
Taken one at a time, these three mythical creatures alluded to a wealth of abstract ideas, from sin to strength to shimmering purity. Their stories speak of triumph and tragedy, of virtue and vice — all the things that captivated medieval minds, and that continue to captivate modern minds today.
