The Fantasy Life of Medieval Bestiaries

It’s always fun to look at medieval drawings of common animals. It’s not just that the folks could not draw (they were generally atrocious at it) it’s that country people were not seeing as much wildlife as most folks imagine, as most wildlife moves only at night and away from houses. People who did not read generally just repeated whatever fable they had been told.

For instance, in this drawing, we are told that when digging dens, badgers use one of their own as a sort of living skid upon which soil and rocks are placed before other badgers drag it out. How else to explain the hundreds of pounds of soil and rock removed?

Here in the eastern United States, the average groundhog has 2-3 burrows, with 800 pounds of soil removed to make each one. Beaver fell trees and plaster the inside of their dams with mud. Neither animal uses another animal as a skid.