The Arbroath Bestiary: De vombato

[pseudomonas]

I feel a bit guilty about this, but in my search for a wombat-related text as a gift, I may have excised a leaf from the University Library's manuscript of the 13th-century Arbroath Bestiary. The rest of the codex was not damaged, fear not.

(click for bigger)

I had to look quite hard to find such a page, since many such texts are unaccountably lacking in detail and illustration when it comes to marsupials.

Comments

[hilarita]

I note that mustela also get a look-in :)

[pseudomonas]

There's never a bad place for a weasel[1]

[1]May not be true.

[pseudomonas]

[fragment of preceding sentence:] [...] qui cangaerum capere potest.

[...]which can catch the kangaroo.

DE VOMBATO

ABOUT THE WOMBAT

Vombas animal est melis corpore ursique capite.

The wombat is an animal with the head of a badger and the head of a bear.

Nomen vombas accepit quod fodientes pedes pro vomeribus utuntur vel quod post nascitur vombas in uterum matri repit et vomitur cum maturus est.

It takes the name "vombas" because its feet are used as ploughshares ["vomer"] while digging, or because after a wombat is born it crawls into its mother's womb and is vomited when it has matured.

Vombates inveniuntur ultime meridionalibus in terribus.

Wombats are found in the lands the furthest to the south.

Fodiens convertit vombas semper ad dextram ut cuniculum eius forma spirala habeat.

When digging, a wombat always turns to the right, so that its passages have a spiral shape.

Septentrionalem in terram demigranto vombato semper ad sinistra convertet.

On being moved to a northern land, a wombat turns always to the left.

Nates vombatis cornescent ut duri sint quasi saxa.

The buttocks of the wombat become horn-like, so that they are as hard as rocks.

Igitur coniugentibus duobus vombatibus, alteruter debet supinare.

Consequently, when two wombats mate, one or the other has to lie on its back.

Oppugnato vombato retrorsum curret ut venatorem natibus pulseat.

When a wombat is attacked, it rushes backwards, striking the hunter with its buttocks.

Venatorem esse diabolum intellige et vombatem aemulare sicut dicitur "vade retro me Satana".

Understand the hunter to be the Devil, and emulate the wombat, as it is said "Get thee behind me, Satan".

[the remainder is verbatim from the Aberdeen bestiary on weasels]