 |
 |
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture No help at all, really, but I thought you might like to know that the motif crops up in Beatrice Potter's 'The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin', (c.1905?) where the squirrels make leaf boats and use their tails as sails. It's a morality tale about pride and imprudence, but there I suspect the resemblence with medieval bestiaries ends! laura ----- Original Message ----- From: Gerbert <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 10:19 PM Subject: [M-R] squirrel Help > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > > Dear All > I am looking for one motif in medieval art- a squirrel > crossing a river.( Sometimes the squirrel is described as using a boat made > from a nutshell, using her tail as a sail, or else - sometimes - a leaf). > This text appears in bestiaries of the third fam- 1220-1240 and in 2 > encyclopedias- Alexander Neckam and Thomas von Cantimpre. Druce in his > article " The medieval bestiaries and their influence on > ecclesiastical decorative art, II" p.67 says that this tale appears also in > 2 mss of 14c ( Collections of the moral tales, part of them were included in > Gesta Romanorum) > - BL Harley 7322 and BL Royal E 21, but alas, does not note folios numbers. > Of course, it is a little bit late for me, since i want to trace this story > back to > pre-XIIIth century sources, but i take it as a starting point and hope it > will lead me somewhere. > I would like to ask You whether by any chance You worked on these mss., or > else, maybe, You have encountered this motif elsewhere, especially in fables > and tales. > As to the representation of this motif in art: > According to Druce, a representation of this story appears in Winchester, > Norwich, > Lincoln, Ulm and other place which Druce did not mention. > ( I already have the Norwich pic and a picture of a souvenire copy of the > one from Lincoln > and would be very interested to know whether You have come across a > misericord or other pic like this. > Thank You, > Ilya > > ********************************************************************** > To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME > to: [log in to unmask] > To send a message to the list, address it to: > [log in to unmask] > To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion > to: [log in to unmask] > In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: > [log in to unmask] > For further information, visit our web site: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html > ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html