Questionable creatures: a bestiary
by Pauline Baynes
This is a little gem of a book. Landscape format but much smaller than the usual picture book size, it would be the perfect possession for the right, rather contemplative, child. Pauline Baynes who, incredibly, illustrated both The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books in the last century, has chosen twenty creatures, some real, some imagined. But even the real ones, like camel, lion, horse or wolf, are seen from the point of view of the mediaeval monks who wrote the bestiaries.
The lion, for example, was believed to sleep with its eyes open, dried horse testicles were eaten as an aphrodisiac and crocodile dung made a great face cream for ageing complexions. But before we laugh, perhaps we should remember that the near extinction of the tiger and white rhino has come about because of beliefs in such folk-remedies which persist till this day.
I always look first for the Manticore in bestiaries - body of a lion with a spiked tail and head of a man with a triple row of teeth. Pauline Baynes's sports a red Phrygian cap, like the magi in the Ravenna mosaics, and looks quite friendly till you see the human leg sticking out of its mouth.
The illustrations inside are subtler than the rather gaudily-coloured cover promises. I particularly like the tonsured monks in the scriptorium on the title page, the glamorous blue horses and the fierce elephant-eating gryphon. The book ends with the Phoenix, great pagan and Christian symbol or rebirth and resurrection. A volume to treasure.
Buy this book from Amazon UK