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Did you grow up playing adventure games and reading fantasy literature (a la “Dragonlance”, “Lord of the Rings”, and “Harry Potter”)? Well if so, you are familiar with a standardized stable of fantasy creatures from medieval lore–familiar mythical beasts such as Manticores, griffins, dragons, and trolls. The creatures which didn’t come from classical mythology originated in bestiaries–medieval fieldguides of astonishing creatures. These treatises didn’t just have made-up monsters they also had a moralizing flavor…and hopefully some illustrations!
However there were some beasts in the bestiaries that didn’t make it past the red pencil of Tolkien and Gygax–like the unhappy subject of today’s post, the bonnacon. The Bonnacon comes down to us from no less a source than Pliny the Elder (who thought it lived in Paeonia (which is modern Macedonia/Bulgaria). The bonnacon was the comic relief monster in medieval bestiaries. The medieval manuscript writers loved it because of its scatalogical hijinks, however the mythical animal’s means of defending itself was so uncouth that the prim myth-makers of the present left it out of the worlds which they built.
I will leave it to the Aberdeen Bestiary to describe the creature to you in its own words. I have stolen the translation from Wikipedia, but the page is immediately above this paragraph, if you want to translate the Latin yourself.
In Asia an animal is found which men call bonnacon. It has the head of a bull, and thereafter its whole body is of the size of a bull’s with the maned neck of a horse. Its horns are convoluted, curling back on themselves in such a way that if anyone comes up against it, he is not harmed. But the protection which its forehead denies this monster is furnished by its bowels. For when it turns to flee, it discharges fumes from the excrement of its belly over a distance of three acres, the heat of which sets fire to anything it touches. In this way, it drives off its pursuers with its harmful excrement.
The poor bonnacon thus seems like a beast which ate too much spicy Taco Bell. This was obviously a source of much glee to the illuminators and scribes of yore, but it was too much for J.K. Rowling. Even fantasy beasts have to get with the times and so the bonnacon has been left behind in the dark ages. Even if it didn’t make it into adventure books and golden tales of magical enchantment, I wonder if there isn’t a place for the monster in contemporary music or modern stand-up. This thing might fit right into Andrew Dice Clay’s act and who can doubt that it would naturalize instantly into Eminem’s lyrics.
Although everyone is familiar with the dragon and the phoenix, there are many other fantastical creatures in the Chinese mythological bestiary. The Quilin or Ch’i-lin (AKA the “Chinese unicorn”) was believed to be indigenous to the realms of heaven. Seldom seen on earth because of its goodness, purity and nobility, the appearance of a quilin before mortal eyes heralded prodigious good fortune. Quilins reputedly only visit earth to presage the birth of the greatest sages and rulers or to signal the advent of a prodigious leap forward.
Like many other mythical animals, the quilin is a wild hybridization of other creatures: it traditionally has a wolf’s head with a single horn (although sometimes it is portrayed with antlers), a multicolored deer’s body covered with fish scales, the hooves of a horse, and the tail of an ox. Its voice sounds like lovely bells. The quilin is most notable for its gentleness and kindness. It refuses to harm any living thing and it does not even bend the grass when it walks. Nevertheless, the quilin could be ferocious in its defense of the righteous or innocent and it is sometimes shown covered in magical flames. Genghis Khan is said to have witnessed a quilin just as he was about to conquer India. Although the creature bowed politely to the great conqueror, its message was clear and Genghis Khan cancelled his plans for subjugating the subcontinent.
It’s a bit unclear how auspicious Genghis Khan was for the world (although he certainly had a magnificent run of good fortune after seeing the quilin). Some other supposed quilin sightings make more sense. A quilin is said to have appeared to the yellow emperor, a legendary wizard-monarch who unified China under one throne in 2697 (that we have an exact date for a fictional person is a fun eccentricity of Chinese history). The quilin emerged from the water of the yellow river bearing a pictogram of China which the yellow emperor used to fashion Chinese writing.
Buddhists call it the dragon horse and revere it for the belief that it carries Buddha’s book of law on its back. Confucianists believe a quilin appeared to the sage’s mother just before he was born and spoke a line of holy prophecy to her. Under the command of the eunuch Zheng He, the treasure fleet of the Yongle Emperor visited the east coast of Africa and was presented with a giraffe. The animal fit the description of a quilin fairly closely and was brought before the Yongle Emperor as such. He dismissed the possibility by wryly saying he was no sage–however he treasured the giraffe and kept the creature in his bestiary.
The Giraffe as painted by artists of the Ming Court
I’m afraid there haven’t been many quilin sightings reported recently. Some religiously-minded Chinese devout believe that this is because the world has become entirely debased (although even for fictional creatures, quilins have always been rare). Perhaps a quilin is ready to appear again in some unlikely place to some wise soul and the world will lurch forward into a new golden era. At any rate, here is a good picture of the creature. Hopefully just looking at the likeness of the quilin will bring you the greatest of good fortune!
The Quilin
ferrebeekeeper 