Evil Dead/Army of Darkness 

‘London Rothschild Hours’ (‘Hours of Joanna I of Castile’), Ghent ca. 1500.

British Library, Add 35313, fol. 158v

Three Little Boars

Gaston Phoebus, Le Livre de la chasse, Paris ca. 1407.

NY, Morgan, MS M. 1044, fol. 1v

ok bunnies, your time is up

above: Psalm 56:12 ‘Exaltare super celos deus, et super omnem terram gloria tua’ (‘Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth’)

Queen Mary Psalter, London 1310-1320.

British Library, Royal 2 B VII, fol. 156r

hare family

Gaston Phoebus, Le Livre de la chasse, Paris ca. 1407.

NY, Morgan, MS M. 1044, fol. 15v

castor dicitur a castrando

(the beaver’s self-castration)

There is an animal called the beaver, which is extremely gentle; its testicles are are highly suitable for medicine. Physiologus says of it that, when it knows that a hunter is pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them in the hunter’s face and, taking flight, escapes. But if, once again, another hunter is in pursuit, the beaver rears up and displays its sexual organs. When the hunter sees that it lacks testicles, he leaves it alone. (The Aberdeen Bestiary)

Bestiary, Salisbury 13th century.

British Library, Harley 4751, fol. 9v

ride the cat, ride the cat

Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, France ca. 1294-1297.

Boulogne-sur-Mer, BM, ms. 130I, fol. 233r

happy unicorn

Rothschild Canticles. Flanders, 14th century.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 404, fol. 51r

SPOTTED CAT

The Master of Game, England 15th century. 

Bodleian, MS Bodley 546, fol. 40v

BAD RABBITS

Le livre de Lancelot du Lac & other Arthurian Romances, Northern France 13th century.

Beinecke, MS 229, fol. 94v

MOUSE & RABBIT HUNTING

Pontifical of Guillaume Durand, Avignon, before 1390.

Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, ms. 143, fol. 76v & 165