Oft I have I featured in these posts fabulous animals that Medieval people thought existed, but never actually did. The Bonnacon is yet another example, and boy oh boy it’s a doozy. Here — and in the following two images — you see illuminated paintings of various Bonnacons that appear in Medieval Bestiaries, writings that catalogued various real and mythical animals. And, yes, that is fecal material and the associated sulphuric gas shooting out of the Bonnacon’s rectum.
Starting with the famous — and frequently wrong — naturalist Pliny the Elder (1st c Ancient Rome), the Bonnacon became known for its unusual defense mechanism. Although it had horns, they curled back against its skull and were therefore useless in defense. But what it lacked in martial defense it more than made up for in other ways.
As the 12th-c Aberdeen Bestiary recorded, “in Asia an animal is found which men call Bonnacon. It has the head of a bull . . . With the maned neck of a horse . . . The protection which its forehead denies 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”.
Usually in Medieval Bestiaries the animals are always being compared to various things from the Christian Bible and used as metaphors for morality. Not the Bonnacon. In the artwork around it, the hunters often have their faces screwed up in expressions of disgust, with their feet pointed in the opposite direction, like they are ready to flee. Poo jokes are timeless, indeed.
Source: “The Bonnacon, laughing stick of the Medieval Bestiary,” Abigail Ahlers, May 8, 2018, J. Paul Getty Iris blog. Medievalists.net, “10 Strange Medieval animals you might not have heard of”. First image, BonnaconKonelige Bibliotheca, Gl.kgl.s. 1633 4; f 10v. Second is Rochester Bestiary Royal MS 12 F xiii, 13thc. Third Northberland Bestiary 1250-60 J Paul Getty MS 100, f 26v
